Philosophy of Inspiration in the Writings of Ellen G. White part 2

Philosophy of Inspiration in the Writings of Ellen G. White (Part 2)

ONLY the chain of inspired Biblical truth can give the links forming a comprehensive picture of what God's message actually is. Ellen G. White was aware of the attitude taken by a certain class of textual critics. While the possibility of error always exists in everything human, the Bible is more than human. . .

-Department of Religion, Pacific Union College at the time this article was written

ONLY the chain of inspired Biblical truth can give the links forming a comprehensive picture of what God's message actually is. Ellen G. White was aware of the attitude taken by a certain class of textual critics. While the possibility of error always exists in everything human, the Bible is more than human. Man's ignorance of all the facts in circumstance and wording should restrain him from making sweeping derogatory statements concerning the Scriptures. Her insight on this is clear and her recommendation precise. Let us consider more fully a statement noted above:

Some look to us gravely and say, "Don't you think there might have been some mistake in the copyist or in the translators?" This is all probable, and the mind that is so narrow that it will hesitate and stumble over this possibility or probability would be just as ready to stumble over the mysteries of the Inspired Word, because their feeble minds cannot see through the purposes of God. Yes, they would just as easily stumble over plain facts that the common mind will accept, and discern the Divine, and to which God's utterance is plain and beautiful, full of marrow and fatness. All the mistakes will not cause trouble to one soul, or cause any feet to stumble, that would not manufacture difficulties from the plainest revealed truth.1

Mrs. White occasionally discussed the interesting point that more than one Biblical author covered the same topic from varying points of view. The four Gospels and the stories in the books of Kings and Chronicles are cases in point. She noted that "this diversity broadens and deepens the knowledge that is brought out to meet the necessities of varied minds." 2 These differences are not discrepancies. And then she declared:

The creator of all ideas may impress different minds with the same thought, but each may express it in a different way, yet without contradiction.3

It should be often repeated that except for the instance in which she calls attention to a supplied word in our English translation, never once did Mrs. White note any specific error in the Scriptures. Her sentiment concerning God's entire Book is revealed in this clear statement: "The Bible, perfect as it is in its simplicity, does not answer to the great ideas of God." 4 This is because it is written in language which a wise Father has used to convey His meaning to an innocent and ignorant child. Mrs. White frequently ex pressed her view that were God to reveal it as fully as He knows it, man would be overwhelmed and unable to understand anything. Yet she could say with confidence:

I take the Bible just as it is, the Inspired Word. I believe its utterances in an entire Bible. Men arise who think they find something to criticize in God's Word. They lay it bare before others as evidence of superior wisdom. These men are, many of them, smart men, learned men, they have eloquence and talent, the whole lifework [of whom] is to unsettle minds in regard to the inspiration of the Scriptures. They influence many to see as they do. And the same work is passed on from one to another, just as Satan designed it should be, until we may see the full meaning of the words of Christ, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" 5

Miracle of Expression

But let us try to look further into this thought. Since the Bible contains God's messages, which are to be read and understood by fallen man, it is obviously appropriate that they should be recorded in human speech. Mrs. White noted that "the truths revealed are all 'given by inspiration of God'; yet they are expressed in the words of men."6 So we understand that the words which the scribes of God employed to convey divine truth were within the vocabulary of the various writers. Ellen White clarifies this thought in a reference to her own experience:

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.7

The expression, "the words I employ . . . are my own," is sometimes construed to mean that the words she or other inspired authors might use contain overtones of erroneous ideas or are inadequate to give the true meaning intended by God. The impression left by this approach to the Scriptures is that the end results in the writings of the Biblical authors, as in the writings of Ellen G. White, are in some way faulty. What Mrs. White is apparently saying, however, is that she is required by the Holy Spirit to explain divine truth within the framework of her own verbal structure. She could hardly employ the vocabulary of another! On one occasion she spoke of the guidance given to her in finding the correct wording in writing upon a certain matter:

I am trying to catch the very words and expressions that were made in reference to this matter, and as my pen hesitates a moment, the appropriate words come to my mind.8

Mrs. White here acknowledges that the Holy Spirit aided her in finding "the appropriate words." Out of all the synonyms that might have been selected to express the truth, the divine Enlightener assisted her in clothing the heavenly ideas in "appropriate words." On another occasion she added to this concept:

I am just as dependent upon the Spirit of the Lord in relating or writing a vision, as in having the vision.9

She understood that this was also true of the writers of the Scriptures. She stressed a point which describes the approach of all the writers of the Bible to their task. The inspired "penmen selected the most expressive language through which to con vey the truths of higher education." M And in telling of her personal dependence at all times upon the Spirit, she recorded:

While I am writing out important matter, He is beside me, helping me. He lays out my work before me, and when I am puzzled for a fit word with which to express my thoughts, He brings it clearly and distinctly to my mind.11

Mrs. White uses three terms in the foregoing statements that are worthy of close study. The Holy Spirit aided the inspired penmen to use "the appropriate words," "the most expressive language," and the "fit word." God, through His Spirit, thus exercises the right of a benign author and prompter to help His needy scribes to write what He purposes.

Miracle of Cooperation

But while the Spirit guides the mind in the ideas to be expressed and then assists in the selection of the best words with which to clothe them, this process goes on within a human personality which remains free to express itself in its own way. Mrs. White clarifies her understanding of this point thus:

Through the inspiration of His Spirit the Lord gave His apostles truth, to be expressed according to the development of their minds by the Holy Spirit. But the mind is not cramped, as if forced into a certain mold. 12

Mrs. White further elaborates on her concept of this divine process in these words:

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! 13

She further declares (in sentences already noted above) that---

He Himself, by His Holy Spirit, qualified men and enabled them to do His work. He guided the mind in the selection of what to speak and what to write. The treasure was entrusted to earthen vessels, yet it is, none the less, from Heaven. The testimony is conveyed through the imperfect expression of human language, yet it is the testimony of God.14

The divine plan behind this procedure resulted in the production of the Bible:

God committed the preparation of His divinely inspired Word to finite man. This Word, arranged into books, the Old and New Testaments, is the guidebook to the inhabitants of a fallen world, bequeathed to them that, by studying and obeying the directions, not one soul would lose its way to heaven.15

God delegated this task of preparing His Book, not to angels or unfallen beings, but to men. But God Himself never relinquished His role as the Author. Mrs. White asks, "Who is the author of the book?" and replies, "Jesus Christ." 16 So she did not regard the inspired writers as in dependent of Heaven. She then calls Him "the Lord, the Author of the living oracles."17 The fact that God is the actual author of every inspired book must never be overlooked. The books were not originated by man. Man simply prepared the materials, given to him by the Lord, into the volume which we call the Scriptures. She further noted:

"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." 18

The dynamic by which God empowered men to write the Sacred Books of which He is ever the author is termed inspiration:

The writers of the Bible had to express their ideas in human language. It was written by human men. These men were inspired by the Holy Spirit.19 Yet it is not God's language, for she tells us that---

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.20

These various writers of the Scriptures were thus God's channels to whom the Lord committed the preparation of His Book by inspiring them to do this task. Continuing her point dealing with the words which these writers employed, Mrs. White says:

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 man are the word of God.21

This is a remarkable statement. Mrs. White evidently understood that in inspiration the Spirit so operated on the human mind and will that these "combine" with the divine mind and will. Inspiration therefore mysteriously produced a blending of the human mind and will with the divine.


FOOTNOTES

1. Selected Messages, book 1, p. 16.

2. Ibid., p. 22.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., p. 17.

6 The Great Controversy, p. v.

7. Review and Herald, Oct. 8, 1867.

8. Letter 123. 1904.

9. Spiritual Gifts, vol. 2, p. 293.

10. Selected Messages, book 1, p. 22.

11. Letter 127, 1902.

12. Selected Messages, book 1, p. 22.

13. Ibid., p. 21.

14. Ibid., p. 26.

15. Ibid., p. 16.

16. Fundamentals of Christian Education, p. 308.

17. Selected Messages, book 1, p. 18.

18. Ibid., p. 25.

19. Ibid., p. 19.

20. lbid., p. 21.

21. Ibid.


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-Department of Religion, Pacific Union College at the time this article was written

February 1969

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