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Ellen G. White, the
self-proclaimed prophet of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church said she
saw a temple in the Holy City, in which
was the ark containing the Ten Commandments,
and the Sabbath Commandment shown brighter
than all the others.
“We felt an unusual spirit of prayer. And as
we prayed the Holy Ghost fell upon us. We
were very happy. Soon I was lost to earthly
things and was wrapped in a vision of God’s
glory. I saw an angel flying swiftly to me.
He quickly carried me from the earth to the
Holy City. In the
city I saw a temple, which I entered.
I passed through a door before I came to the
first veil. This veil was raised, and I
passed into the holy place. Here I saw the
altar of incense, the candlestick with seven
lamps, and the table on which was the
shewbread. After viewing the glory of the
holy, Jesus raised the second veil and I
passed into the holy of holies.
In the holiest I saw an ark; on the top and
sides of it was purest gold. On each end of
the ark was a lovely cherub, with its wings
spread out over it. Their faces were turned
toward each other, and they looked downward.
Between the angels was a golden censer.
Above the ark, where the angels stood, was
an exceeding bright glory, that appeared
like a throne where God dwelt. Jesus stood
by the ark, and as the saints’ prayers came
up to Him, the incense in the censer would
smoke, and He would offer up their prayers
with the smoke of the incense to His Father.
In the ark was the golden pot of manna,
Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of
stone which folded together like a book.
Jesus opened them, and I saw the ten
commandments written on them with the finger
of God. On one table were four, and on the
other six. The four on the first table shone
brighter than the other six.
But the fourth,
the Sabbath
commandment,
shone above them
all; for
the Sabbath was set apart to be kept in
honor of God’s holy name. The holy
Sabbath looked glorious—a halo of glory was
all around it. I
saw that the Sabbath commandment was not
nailed to the cross.
If it was,
the other nine
commandments were;
and we are at
liberty to break them all,
as well as to
break the fourth. I saw that God had
not changed the Sabbath, for He never
changes. But the pope had changed it from
the seventh to the first day of the week;
for he was to change times and laws.” [Early
Writings, pp. 32-33, 1847].
Ellen G. White vs. the Bible: What do the
scriptures say?
There are a
number of unbiblical statements in this
vision that prove that Ellen G. White and
the Seventh-day Adventist Church do not
follow the Bible as their source for divine
truth.
Jesus told us what the greatest commandments
were and they were not even from the
Decalogue.
Mark 12:28-32
says, “And one of the scribes came up and
heard them disputing with one another, and
seeing that he answered them well, asked
him, “Which commandment is the most
important of all?” Jesus answered, “The
most important is, ‘Hear,
O Israel:
The Lord our God,
the Lord is one.
And you shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your
mind and with all your strength.’
The second is
this: ‘You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other
commandment greater than these.” And
the scribe said to him, “You are right,
Teacher. You have truly said that he is one,
and there is no other besides him.”
The claim that the Sabbath was
changed by Rome is false!
Seventh-day Adventists and some of the other
Sabbatarian groups claim that the Roman
Catholic Church changed the Sabbath to
Sunday in the fourth century.
The
Roman Catholic Church makes all kinds of
false claims about their role in Church
history and the Bible. There are a lot of
things the Catholics claim that Seventh-day
Adventists don’t accept. Just because the
Roman Catholic Church claims to have changed
the Sabbath to Sunday doesn’t mean they
actually did.
Ellen G. White
originally said the papacy changed the
Sabbath in AD 321, which turned out to be
false. When she realized she couldn’t prove
that point, she changed what she said and
claimed that the Emperor Constantine was the
one who changed the Sabbath to Sunday.
[1] Both
statements can’t be true! Which of Ellen
White’s contradictory statements is correct?
In fact, neither the pope nor
Constantine changed the Sabbath to Sunday.
The Bible and all of the historical writings
we have of the Early Church Fathers show
that the Church began to worship on the
first day of the week in honor of Christ’s
resurrection (which they called the Lord’s
Day), in the first century.
The
Sabbath and all of the other Old Covenant
ceremonies were made obsolete by the New
Covenant.
Colossians 2:13-17
says, “When you were dead in your sins and
in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature,
God made you alive with Christ. He forgave
us all our sins, having canceled the written
code, with its regulations, that was against
us and that stood opposed to us; he took it
away, nailing it to the cross. And having
disarmed the powers and authorities, he made
a public spectacle of them, triumphing over
them by the cross. Therefore do not let
anyone judge you by what you eat or drink,
or with regard to a religious festival, a
New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These
are a shadow of the things that were to
come; the reality, however, is found in
Christ.” (NIV)
Ephesians 2:13-16
says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once
were far away have been brought near through
the blood of Christ. For he himself is our
peace, who has made the two one and has
destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of
hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the
law with its commandments and regulations.
His purpose was to create in himself one new
man out of the two, thus making peace, and
in this one body to reconcile both of them
to God through the cross, by which he put to
death their hostility.” (NIV)
Romans
14:5, 10-12 says, “One person esteems one
day as better than another, while another
esteems all days alike. Each one should be
fully convinced in his own mind. . . Why do
you pass judgment on your brother? Or you,
why do you despise your brother? For we will
all stand before the judgment seat of God;
for it is written, “As I live, says the
Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every
tongue shall confess to God.” So then each
of us will give an account of himself to
God.”
And Galatians 4:8-11 says,
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you
were slaves to those who by nature are not
gods. But now that you know God, or rather
are known by God, how is it that you are
turning back to those weak and worthless
principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by
them all over again? You are observing
special days and months and seasons and
years! I fear for you, that my efforts for
you may have been in vain.” (BSB)
Ellen G. White didn’t understand the
difference between the Old and the New
Covenants.
She told people
to keep some of the laws from the Old
Covenant just like the Judaizers did in New
Testament times (see: Rom. 2-8; Gal. 2-6;
Eph. 1-2; Col. 2; Heb. 4-10; James 1-5).
Ellen White and the Seventh-day
Adventist Church she helped to found, are
covenant confused. They mix laws from the
Bible without any regard for their context, the
covenant they are in, or the actual meaning
of the words used in the original languages
to support their unbiblical beliefs.
The Old Covenant was a legal agreement
made with the nation of Israel alone (Exod.
34:27-28; Lev. 26:46; Rom. 9:4). The New
Covenant is a “new” legal agreement made
with everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike, who
put their trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior
(Heb. 7:12; 8:6-13; 10:9; Rom. 10:4; Gal.
3:21-24; 2 Cor. 3:6-11; 5:16-21).
Christians are under a different covenant
than Israel was altogether, we have the New
Covenant to live by in its place.
The Sabbath was meant for Israel
alone because it served as a ceremonial sign
for the Mosaic Covenant.
Exodus 31:12-17 says, “And the LORD said to
Moses, ‘You are to speak to the people of
Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my
Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and
you throughout your generations, that you
may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you. You
shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy
for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be
put to death. Whoever does any work on it,
that soul shall be cut off from among his
people. Six days shall work be done, but the
seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest,
holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on
the Sabbath day shall be put to death.
Therefore the people of Israel shall keep
the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath
throughout their generations, as a covenant
forever. It is a sign forever between me and
the people of Israel that in six days the
LORD made heaven and earth, and on the
seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”
And Ezekiel 20:12, 20 says, “Moreover, I
gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me
and them, that they might know that I am the
LORD who sanctifies them… and keep my
Sabbaths holy that they may be a sign
between me and you, that you may know that I
am the LORD your God.”
These
two passages make it perfectly clear that
God gave the Sabbath to Israel alone as a
ceremonial sign of their covenant with Him.
The Sabbath could only serve as a sign
of the Mosaic Covenant if it was unique to
Israel. It had to distinguish Israel from
all the other nations. The Sabbath could not
function as a visible sign of God’s covenant
with Israel if everyone else was expected to
keep it. A sign sets something apart from
the rest. In fact, one of the main reasons
God gave Israel for keeping the Sabbath was
to remind them of how he was able to deliver
them from Egyptian bondage (Exod. 16:23, 29;
31:13-18; Deut. 5:12-15).
There is no command in the New
Testament for Christ’s followers to keep any day of
the week holy.
Christians
were expected to follow the moral teachings
of Christ and His apostles which were based
on the moral principles taught in the Torah,
but the Sabbath was not made a requirement
for the New Covenant Church. The Apostle
Paul wrote over one-third of the New
Testament and gave instruction on everything
the Church needed to know about living the
Christian life but never told anyone they
had to keep the Mosaic Law, or the seventh
day Sabbath. None of the other apostles did
either.
The Old Covenant is
obsolete. Christians live under the New
Covenant with Jesus Christ as our rest.
Matthew 11:28-30 says, “Come to me, all
who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and
learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in
heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.”
Every day is a Sabbath rest
for those who put their trust in Jesus
Christ alone for their salvation (Heb.
4:9-11).
Ellen G. White and
the Seventh-day Adventist Church teach a
false gospel of works-righteousness.
No one is required to keep the laws of
the Old Covenant in the New Covenant, they
are separate and distinct covenants made
with different people groups. The
doctrines of
1844 and the Investigative Judgment are
false doctrines devoid of grace. Ellen White said
we
must stand without Christ as our mediator
and
be sinless in the last days to be saved.
Ellen White and the Seventh-day Adventist
Church teach believers enter into a
judgment
of works that determines their salvation,
and Sabbath-keeping in the last days is one
of those works.
The Seventh-day
Adventist Church teaches a fear-based
religion that can only lead a person to
self-doubt and failure. Those fear-based
teachings are central to the beliefs of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church and cannot be avoided.
All the evidence proves Ellen G. White was a
false prophet who
contradicted the Bible in
many places,
plagiarized the words of other
authors, and then lied about where she
got those words. She made well documented,
false prophecies (such as
the shut door), and then said God showed
her those things in vision. When the Seventh-day
Adventist Church promotes her they are
telling people to believe in a liar, a fraud,
and a
wolf in sheep’s clothing.
So, “Come out of her, my people, so that you
will not share in her sins or receive any of
her plagues.” (Rev. 18:4 CSB).
References:
1. See: “Early
Writings” pages 32-33, and “The Great
Controversy” page 53, 447.
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