Now, I’m fairly certain most everyone would agree with this statement. But in spite of this clear counsel, there are many people who believe themselves to be of “the remnant of God’s seed” but are following some minister or ministry leader as their “safeguard” against the influence of false teachers who are themselves false teachers! How much sense does that make?
In 1 Cor. 11:1 the apostle Paul had the right idea. “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” And so, very clearly, we are to follow man only as far as he follows Christ. It’s not safe for us to follow man one step farther than where he himself steps out of the footprints of Jesus.
Nineteen times in the New Testament Jesus said, “Follow Me,” and it would be well to take Him at His word because there is great danger in relying upon the arm of flesh:
Therefore, the scriptures are our only safeguard against the influence of false teachers. And when I say “scriptures” I refer also to the Spirit of Prophecy, because the word scripture means, “a document of holy writ.” And surely, for those of us who understand that the Bible itself declares that God’s last day people would have the gift of prophecy restored to them; aren’t we able, after comparing it with the Bible, to place as much confidence in the Spirit of Prophecy as we do in the Old and New Testaments themselves?
This may come as a shock to some, but there are no degrees of inspiration! The same Spirit that inspired holy men of old, either inspired Ellen White or He didn’t! And if He did—then He has also looked after her writings and preserved them as He has done with all 66 books of the Bible. Is that a fair assumption?
And when I say Bible, I’m not talking about the Old King James Version, the New King James Version, the New American Standard Version or any other English translation. I’m referring to the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, which are much older. When you consider how God’s word has been miraculously protected and preserved in written form for some 3500 years, don’t you think God has had the ability to preserve the Spirit of Prophecy writings for the last 160 years? Even to ask the question sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Nevertheless there are those who would dispute this fact.
There are some who would say, “Yes! God is able, but what Spirit of Prophecy are you referring to: what she wrote prior to 1881 when James White, the guardian of her writings, died? Or what was changed by the brethren after this godly man fell asleep in Jesus?”
You may have heard these or similar arguments in the past—or maybe you haven’t—but we’ll discuss more about this as we go along.
Approximately 6 years ago, I heard for the first time about alleged book changes: about the Spirit of Prophecy being tampered with, about unscrupulous men taking it upon themselves to add, delete, interpolate, or rearrange what God intended should remain unchanged as His prophet originally wrote it. And thus we have the term “The Original Writings”.
This is something that has been promoted for many years now and lately has taken root in the minds of an ever-increasing number of Historic SDAs.
I have to be honest with you. At first, I didn’t know what to think when this new information came to me, and I began to find myself becoming suspicious about what I had heretofore accepted with complete confidence. I guess you could say I have been through an evolutionary process in my thinking on this subject over the past few years.
After receiving this information, and as the next few years rolled by, I began to see the fruit and the false teachings and the hate and the evil surmising that was developing in the lives of some of those who came to believe this book tampering lie and I determined at that point that this was none other than the last deception of Satan for Adventists that we were warned about over 100 years ago.
It’s found in Selected Messages, Book 1, pg. 48: ‘Satan is . . . constantly pressing in the spurious—to lead away from the truth. The very last deception of Satan will be to make of none effect the testimony of the Spirit of God {the context clearly indicates that this is speaking of Ellen White’s writings}. “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Prov. 29:18). Satan will work ingeniously, in different ways and through different agencies, to unsettle the confidence of God’s remnant people in the true testimony.
‘There will be a hatred kindled against the testimonies which is satanic. The workings of Satan will be to unsettle the faith of the churches in them, for this reason: Satan cannot have so clear a track to bring in his deceptions and bind up souls in his delusions if the warnings and reproofs and counsels of the Spirit of God are heeded.’
Ibid. pg. 41, 42: ‘Soon every possible effort will be made to discount and pervert the truth of the testimonies of God’s Spirit. . . .
‘There will be those once united with us in the faith who will search for new, strange doctrines, for something odd and sensational to present to the people. . . .
‘Some will yield their faith, and will deny the truth of the messages, pointing to them as falsehoods.
‘Some will hold them up to ridicule, working against the light that God has been giving for years, and some who are weak in the faith will thus be led astray.’
Now, let’s back up and examine these charges one at a time. Were the words that Ellen White wrote dictated to her by the Holy Spirit? Usually when we think of dictation we get a mental image of one person speaking and another person writing exactly what was said. Or perhaps sitting at a dictation machine and transcribing what was recorded. Or maybe a courtroom stenographer who types out exactly what is being said by each witness. But is this the way it happened with Ellen White and the other prophets?
Well, first of all, I would like you to read a statement from Testimonies, vol. 4, because this is the statement used to support the idea that Ellen White had no control over what she wrote—that she was merely God’s dictation machine.
Testimonies, vol. 4, pg. 9: “The scribes of God wrote as they were dictated by the Holy Spirit, having no control of the work themselves.”
Now, at first reading it seems as though the “original writings” proponents could have a good point here, that Ellen wrote word for word exactly what God told her to write and not what the Holy Spirit inspired her to write in her own words. But is that the meaning of what we just read? And if not, how are we going to know the truth?
Haven’t we always been taught that we are to compare scripture with scripture? Well, the same holds true with the Spirit of Prophecy.
Selected Messages, Book 1, pg. 42 says, “The testimonies themselves will be the key that will explain the messages given, as scripture is explained by scripture.”
And so, let’s let the testimonies themselves explain what it means to be dictated to by the Holy Spirit.
Testimonies, vol. 5, pg. 101: ‘With what fidelity do these words portray the present condition of the church: “Knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Messages of warning, dictated by the Holy Spirit, are borne by the servants of God {His ministers}, defects of character are presented before the erring; but they say: “That does not represent my case. I do not accept the message you bring. I am doing the best I can. I believe the truth.” ’
Testimonies, vol. 6, pg. 472: ‘I speak to the workers, young and old, who are handling our books, and especially to those who are canvassing for the book {Christ’s Object Lessons} that is now doing its errand of mercy: Exemplify in the life the lessons given by Christ in His Sermon on the Mount. This will make a deeper impression and have a more lasting influence upon minds than will the sermons given from the pulpit. You {colporteurs} may not be able to speak eloquently to those you desire to help; but if you speak modestly, hiding self in Christ, your words will be dictated by the Holy Spirit; and Christ, with whom you are cooperating, will impress the heart.’
Review & Herald June 21, 1898 (This article is addressed to everyone of God’s stewards): “The Lord has need of your words, dictated by his Holy Spirit.”
And so, we see here that to be under the dictation of the Holy Spirit means to be under the authority or instruction of the Holy Spirit when one speaks or writes. It’s obvious from the statements just read that the dictation of the Holy Spirit does not bypass man’s intellect and make him a machine in the hands of God, but impresses the mind, and man then speaks or writes it out in his own words.
Those who believe the books have been changed would have you to understand that the prophets were automatons or robots with no mental input of their own. Mere machines that could only write each word as God spoke it to them. Zombies with no free will. Sorry! God doesn’t work that way.
In fact, let me do something the book change people would frown upon, and use a couple synonyms in place of the word “dictated” in the quote we already read from Testimonies, vol. 4, pg. 9. ‘The scribes of God wrote as they were dictated {authorized or instructed} by the Holy Spirit, having no control of the work themselves.” Of course they had no control of the work themselves! If it was of themselves it would have been a complete failure. It was a divine and human effort combined, as you will read in a few moments. This understanding about the dictation of the Holy Spirit completely harmonizes with the other three we already read.
Testimonies, vol. 3, pg. 255 says, ‘. . . God does not propose to remove all occasion for unbelief. He gives evidence, which must be carefully investigated with a humble mind and a teachable spirit, and all should decide from the weight of evidence.’
And so, we discover a rule—when we have one statement that is ambiguous and three that are clear and harmonious, we always take the weight of evidence. And the weight of evidence teaches that “holy men of God spake {in their own language} as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Now let’s read it from the Spirit of Prophecy.
Selected Messages, Book 1, pg. 25, 26 ‘The Bible points to God as its author; yet it was written by human hands; and in the varied style of its different books it presents the characteristics of the several writers. The truths revealed are all ‘given by inspiration of God’ (2 Tim. 3:16); yet they are expressed in the words of men. The Infinite One by His Holy Spirit has shed light into the minds and hearts of His servants. He has given dreams and visions, symbols and figures; and those to whom the truth was thus revealed, have themselves embodied the thought in human language.
‘The Ten Commandments were spoken by God Himself, and were written by His own hand. They are of divine, and not human composition. But the Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, presents a union of the divine and the human.’
Selected Messages, Book 1, pg. 37 ‘Although I am as dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord in writing my views as I am in receiving them, yet the words I employ in describing what I have seen are my own, unless they be those spoken to me by an angel, which I always enclose in marks of quotation.—The Review and Herald, Oct. 8, 1867.’ {Notice: this was written long before James died}
Selected Messages, Book 1, pg. 21 ‘The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God’s mode of thought and expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen, not His pen. Look at the different writers.
‘It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired. Inspiration acts not on the man’s words or his expressions but on the man himself, who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words receive the impress of the individual mind. The divine mind is diffused. The divine mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the man are the word of God.—Manuscript 24, 1886 (written in Europe in 1886).’
By the way: Testimonies, Vol. 4, pg. 9 (written in 1876) and Review & Herald, January 22, 1880 are the same article but do not read the same. As we compared the two, we found a minimum of 43 word changes and 7 paragraphs of the Testimonies article omitted in the Review article. How do you account for that if nothing was supposed to have been changed before 1881?
Which brings us to the next point: Was James White the guardian of or the “houseband” around the Spirit of Prophecy writings as is claimed? It is true that it was God’s plan to unite James and Ellen together because He saw strengths and weaknesses that would be a compliment to each other, and also because in her feeble condition Ellen needed a “legal protector” to take care of her physical person. But did God leave it up to fallible man to be the guardian of the Spirit of Prophecy? Did God choose James to keep the brethren from monkeying with the Spirit of Prophecy? If not, what was James White’s roll?
Selected Messages, Book 1, pg. 50 tells us, ‘While my husband lived, he acted as a helper and counselor in the sending out of the messages that were given to me. We traveled extensively. Sometimes light would be given to me in the night season, sometimes in the daytime before large congregations. The instruction I received in vision was faithfully written out by me, as I had time and strength for the work. Afterward we examined the matter together, my husband correcting grammatical errors and eliminating needless repetition. Then it was carefully copied for the persons addressed, or for the printer.’
Also notice Selected Messages, Book 3, pg. 89: ‘This morning I take into candid consideration my writings. My husband is too feeble to help me prepare them for the printer, therefore I shall do no more with them at present. I am not a scholar. I cannot prepare my own writings for the press. Until I can do this I shall write no more. —Manuscript 3, 1873. (Diary Jan. 10, 1873.)’ {Again, written before 1881}
James wasn’t the guardian of the Spirit of Prophecy, but the teacher that corrected the papers as it were. God has always been the guardian of His own word and He always will be.
As I searched the Spirit of Prophecy I was unable to find even one line that would support the idea that James’ job description included protecting Ellen’s writings from the book change committee.
The third accusation is that there were additions, omissions, and changes of various kinds without Ellen’s approval or knowledge.
Well, it’s true—there were omissions made in the Spirit of Prophecy. In some cases, information was withheld so others could not use it to do injury to the one it was written about. You have probably noticed as you have read the Testimonies that the ones written about most often were bro. & sis._____. There was good reason for this.
In Selected Messages, Book 3, pg. 98 there’s a section dealing with this very thing. ‘I must select the most important matters for the Testimony (vol. 6) and then look over everything prepared for it, and be my own critic; for I would not be willing to have some things which are all truth to be published; because I fear that some would take advantage of them to hurt others.
‘After the matter for the Testimony is prepared, every article must be read by me. I have to read them myself; for the sound of the voice in reading or singing is almost unendurable to me.
‘I try to bring out general principles, and if I see a sentence which I fear would give someone excuse to injure someone else, I feel at perfect liberty to keep back the sentence, even though it is all perfectly true.’
What about changes or additions? Did God authorize Ellen White to add or to change what she had already written?
Selected Messages, Book 3, pg. 96, 97: ‘I was shown that I should present before the people in the best manner possible the light received; then as I received greater light, and as I used the talent God had given me, I should have increased ability to use in writing and in speaking. I was to improve everything, as far as possible bringing it to perfection, that it might be accepted by intelligent minds.’
Selected Messages, Book 3, pg. 97, 98: ‘Now, Brother Smith, I have been making a careful, critical examination of the work that has been done on the Testimonies, and I see a few things that I think should be corrected in the matter brought before you and others at the General Conference [November, 1883]. . . . Where the language used is not the best, I want it made correct and grammatical, as I believe it should be in every case where it can be without destroying the sense. This work is delayed, which does not please me. . . .
‘My mind has been exercised upon the question of the Testimonies that have been revised. We have looked them over more critically. I cannot see the matter as my brethren see it. I think the changes will improve the book. If our enemies handle it, let them do so. . . .
‘I think that anything that shall go forth will be criticized, twisted, turned, and boggled, but we are to go forward with a clear conscience, doing what we can and leaving the result with God.
And what about Willie White? Was he the terrible person he’s accused of being?
Selected Messages, Book 1, pg. 50: ‘As the work grew, others assisted me in the preparation of matter for publication. After my husband’s death, faithful helpers joined me, who labored untiringly in the work of copying the testimonies and preparing articles for publication.
‘But the reports that are circulated, that any of my helpers are permitted to add matter or change the meaning of the messages I write out, are not true.
‘While we were in Australia the Lord instructed me that W. C. White should be relieved from the many burdens his brethren would lay upon him, that he might be more free to assist me in the work the Lord has laid upon me. The promise had been given, “I will put My Spirit upon him, and give him wisdom.”
‘Since my return to America I have several times received instruction that the Lord has given me W. C. White to be my helper, and that in this work the Lord will give him of His Spirit.’
There are those who would have you believe that Willie White wrote these words himself, right under his mother’s nose and she didn’t even know it. I reject that accusation because my Bible says, “there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets.” If anyone tried to pull the wool over the prophet’s eyes, God would have told her plainly. And He did.
We have examples in the Bible of God revealing things to obedient prophets and withholding information from disobedient ones. If Ellen White was unaware of what was going on right under her nose, what does that make her? Shame on the proponents of so called book changes. See 1 Kings 13:1-32; 1 Kings 14:1-6 and Acts 5:1-11.
So we sent the following email to the main proponent of the original writings for an explanation.
“Greetings, I was comparing several chapters in the Redemption series with SOP volumes 2 & 3 and I’m finding changes even among the original writings which are obviously written from the same manuscripts. Can you explain to me how this can be if not a word is to be changed, not a paragraph deleted, and no sentences re-arranged? Your reply would be much appreciated.
“P.S. I sent you this message a couple weeks ago and would really appreciate a response – Thanks.”
The response was four paragraphs long but nothing relative to my question except one sentence. “I have noticed the things in the Spirit of Prophecy books, but cannot explain why they changed them.”
Friends, we already know why the changes occurred. It was by the permission and urging of Ellen White herself. That is clear from her own pen.
So don’t fall for the very last deception of Satan to make of none effect the testimonies of the Spirit of God.
[EDITORS NOTE: All underlining and words in brackets in the Spirit of Prophecy statements were supplied by the editor.]
The Religious Telescope, of 1844, uses the following language: “We have never witnessed such a general declension of religion as at the present. Truly the church should awake and search into the cause of this affliction; for an affliction every one that loves Zion must view it. When we call to mind how ‘few and far between’ cases of true conversion are, and the almost unparalleled impenitence and hardness of sinners, we almost involuntarily exclaim, ‘Has God forgotten to be gracious? or is the door of mercy closed?’ ”
These testimonies only are offered out of much of like import that might be quoted, as they are specimens of the whole. But it may be said that our views of the moral fall and spiritual death of the churches are shown to be incorrect by the great revivals of 1858. Of the fruit of these revivals let the leading Congregational and Baptist papers of Boston bear testimony. Says the Congregationalist for November 19, 1858:
“The revival piety of our churches is not such that one can confidently infer, from its mere existence, its legitimate, practical fruits. It ought, for example, to be as certain, after such a shower of grace, that the treasuries of our benevolent societies would be filled, as it is after a plentiful rain, that the streams will swell in their channels. But the managers of our societies are bewailing the feebleness of the sympathy and aid of the churches.
“There is another and sadder illustration of the same general truth. The Watchman and Reflector recently stated that there had never been among the Baptists so lamentable a spread of church dissension as prevails at present. And the sad fact is mentioned that this sin infects the very churches which shared most largely in the late revival. And the still more melancholy fact is added, that these alienations date back their origin, in most cases, to the very midst of that scene of awakening. Even a glance at the weekly journals of our own denomination, will evince that the evil is by no means confined to the Baptists. Our own columns have, perhaps, never borne so humiliating a record of contentions, and ecclesiastical litigation as during the last few months.”
A Presbyterian pastor, of Belfast, Ireland, uses the following language respecting the recent revivals in this country: “The determination to crush all ministers who say a word against their national sin [slavery], the determination to suffocate and suppress the plain teachings of Scripture, can be persisted in and carried out at the very time these New York Christians are expecting the religious world to hail their revivals. Until the wretchedly-degraded churches of America do the work of God in their own land, they have no spiritual vitality to communicate to others; their revivals are in the religious world what their flaunted cries of liberty, intermingled with the groans of the slave, are in the political.” New York Independent, December, 1859.
During the time of the great Irish revival of the past year [1859] the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church of Ireland, held its session in Belfast. Says the Belfast Newspaper of September 30: “Here is this venerable body of ministers and elders, we find two ministers openly giving each other the lie, and the whole General Assembly turned into a scene of confusion bordering upon a riot.”
These sad facts need no comment. In Ireland the ministers of the gospel are unable to meet in General Assembly without a riot among themselves; in America prayers for the enslaved were not allowed in the revival meetings. No wonder that fruit of genuine piety is difficult to be found.
How unlike what God designed that his people should be, has this great city become! The church of Christ was to be the light of the world, a city set upon a hill, which could not be hid. Matt. v, 14-16. But instead of this, his professed people have united with the world and joined affinity with it. This unlawful union of the church and the world (James iv, 4,) has resulted in her rejection by God; for how can the God of truth and holiness recognize as his people, those who in addition to their departure from their Lord, have rejected with scorn the tidings of his speedy coming?
The following extract is from an address before the Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.:
“I think no man can go with his thoughts about him into one of our churches without feeling that what hold the public worship had on men is gone or going. It has lost its grasp on the affections of the good, and the fear of the bad. It is already beginning to indicate character and religion to withdraw from religious meetings. I have heard a devout person, who prized, the Sabbath, say in bitterness of heart, ‘On Sunday it seems wicked to go to church.’ And the motive that holds the best there is now only a hope, and a waiting.”
Prof. S. C. Bartlett, of Chicago, in the New York Independent, says:
“Religion now is in a different position from Methodism then. To a certain extent it is a very reputable thing. Christianity is, in our day, something of a success. Men ‘speak well of it.’ Ex-presidents and statesmen have been willing to round off their career with a recognition of its claims. And the popularity of religion tends vastly to increase the number of those who would secure its benefits without squarely meeting its duties. The church courts the world, and the world caresses the church. The line of separation between the godly and the irreligious fades out into a kind of penumbra, and zealous men on both sides are toiling to obliterate all difference between their modes of action and enjoyment.”
For further testimony from their own lips respecting the state of the churches, their covetousness, pride in church buildings, operatic singing in their worship, their religious gambling, their endorsement of dancing, their zeal for worldly pleasure, and their pride and fashion, we refer the reader to the works entitled “The Three Messages,” and “The State of the Churches,” for sale at the Review Office, Battle Creek, Mich.
—to be continued
Dear Jack and Cindy,
Hi, I hope this letter finds you in the best of health, as for me I’m fine.
I was talking with the unit chaplain today about our study {He has a buddy studying with him}. He said that the system here in Texas has cut a lot of the religious services in the prisons. He wanted me to give him your address to see about getting studies started with other inmates. I wanted to ask you first because I don’t know how many studies he is talking about. I’m sure that he would contact you first. I really don’t know they might overload you or there might be no results at all. . . .
Your friend in the Word and love of God, EJH
In His Service,
Jack and Cindy Jones
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