Conflicts between true and false prophets were common in biblical times, and the result was often confusion. In order to protect His people from deception, the Lord instructed them on ways to distinguish between the genuine and the false (for example, Deut. 13:1, 2; 18:22; Jer. 28:8, 9; Matt. 7:16, 17).
In this article, I will apply one of these tests to the prophetic ministry of Ellen G. White. I have chosen this particular one because of its unique theological emphasis on the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation: “Test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:1–3, ESV). John refers to prophets who deny that the Son of God became flesh, or human.
The evaluating instrument is the apostolic teaching preserved for us in the New Testament. There are at least three elements of the doctrine of the Incarnation that we need to explore: its uniqueness, nature, and purpose. What does Scripture teach about these elements, and what does Ellen White say about them in harmony with the Word?
The uniqueness of the Incarnation
When the angel announced to Mary that she would conceive in her “womb and bear a son,” she immediately asked, “‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ ” (Luke 1:34, NASB). She knew enough about the process of human procreation to perceive that such a thing was impossible. The answer of the angel appears enigmatic: The Incarnation is not about the biological laws of human conception but about the power of God working through the Spirit. God is going to perform within Mary a cosmic singularity. Inside her, the Son of God will be incarnated, becoming a human being.
The statement of the angel shrouded the Incarnation in a deep mystery. Thus, the question of Mary, How can a virgin be pregnant? becomes for us, How could God become human? The Bible does not attempt to answer that question. Indeed, John simply reaffirms the fact of revelation: “The Word [the Son of God] became flesh” (John 1:14). We face here what is probably the most daring statement ever found in the history of human thought. If it is true, and it is true, this changes everything on Earth and in the cosmos. The idea was inconceivable to the Greeks and for those influenced by their philosophy. Some Christians found the idea embarrassing and preferred to speak about a Christ that, in appearance, became human but that, in reality, was not human (that is, Docetism). These are identified by John as false prophets. The rationalism of the Enlightenment found the idea of the Incarnation extremely offensive, even repulsive, and concluded that Incarnation was a remnant of the mythological thinking of the apostolic church. But the witness of the New Testament remains: “The Word became flesh.”
The New Testament clearly establishes that the incarnation of God in human flesh is a “mystery.” Paul looked into this topic and exclaimed: “Great is the mystery [mustērion, “secret” or “mystery”] of godliness: He . . . was revealed in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).1 Ellen G. White, with prophetic authority, reaffirms the biblical teaching, saying, “The incarnation of Christ is the mystery of all mysteries.”2 We find it incomprehensible to us that the Second Member of the Godhead would leave His glorious throne at the center of the cosmos to become a human being born of a woman. In a unique way, God indeed entered the world, the experience, and the life of a creature. He became an earthling.
White takes us inside the miracle itself and, with prophetic insight, emphasizes its cosmic incomprehensibility: “Christ, at an infinite cost, by a painful process, mysterious to angels as well as to men, assumed humanity.
Hiding His divinity, laying aside His glory, He was born a babe in Bethlehem.”3 No attempt exists to delve into the process itself; instead, with prophetic authority, she states that the process was painful to God. She adds that the Incarnation is “too deep for the human mind to explain, or even fully to comprehend.”4 Indeed, the incarnation of the Word remains a mystery, but its reality remains unquestionable and should be used to identify false prophecy.'
The nature of the Incarnation
Although the mystery as such remains beyond our full comprehension, we can understand something about it.
First, in Christ we find two natures— the human and the divine. “For in Him [Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9, NASB). The human nature did not become divine, and neither did the divine nature become a human nature. There exists no communication of properties, or consubstantiality, in the two natures; each retained its distinctiveness. He remained divine and human as one person. This idea, widely affirmed by the Christian world, also is reaffirmed by Ellen White: “His finite nature was pure and spotless, but the divine nature . . . was not humanized; neither was humanity deified by the blending or union of the two natures; each retained its essential character and proper- ties.”5 The mysterious union of the two natures makes it possible for us to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:19).
Second, because there were two natures, there were two wills in the one person of Christ—the human will and the divine will. But the human will was characterized by a constant disposition to submit to the divine one. In Gethsemane, Jesus speaks to the Father, saying, “ ‘My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done’ ” (Matt. 26:42, NASB). The human will expresses its full submission to the divine. The thought becomes trumpeted by Ellen White as she reaffirms the Incarnation: “In Christ there was a subjection of the human to the divine.”6
Third, the union of the two natures in one person lives on as a permanent one. The Word became flesh and will remain human forever. He was born as a human being from a woman (Gal. 4:4) and lived His whole life in the flesh (Heb. 5:7). He was crucified and resurrected, and He ascended to heaven with our glorified human nature, and there He intercedes for us before the Father: “For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men [anthrōpōn, “human beings”], the Man [anthrōpos, “human being”] Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5, NKJV). John clarifies that, at His return, Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh (2 John 7).7 The Incarnation was never suspended and will never be suspended. Paul says that once the cosmic conflict is over, all things will be subjected again to the Father, and “the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28, NASB). Christ’s sacrifice remains an eternal one.
Ellen White, in support of the biblical teaching and as a true prophet of God, declares, “In taking our nature, the Saviour has bound Himself to humanity by a tie that is never to be broken. Through the eternal ages He is linked with us. . . . He gave Him to the fallen race. To assure us of His immutable counsel of peace, God gave His only-begotten Son to become one of the human family, forever to retain His human nature.”8
Purpose of the Incarnation
Since the Incarnation cannot be separated from what God accomplished through it for us, it centers on the most majestic cosmic revelation of the love of God (1 John 4:8–11). He came into a world deeply damaged by sin and devoid of even one righteous person (Rom. 3:10, 11). He came into a house of bondage, evil, and corruption. To this despicable place the incarnate God came to live a life of absolute submission to the Father and did so in order to show us the goodness of God. White states, “To this sin-darkened earth He came to reveal the light of God’s love,—to be ‘God with us.’”9
According to Paul, through the Incarnation, the Son of God experienced the kenosis, but without losing any of His divine attributes, He became a servant of God. He who was God “emptied Himself [kenoō, ‘to make empty’], taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men . . . He humbled Himself by becoming obedient” to God (Phil. 2:7, 8, NASB). In doing this, Jesus revealed that only in union with and in submission to God can humans achieve fullness of life and well-being, thus unmasking the damaging effect of Adam’s rebel- lion. The goodness of the divine will is substantiated by Ellen White: “The law of love being the foundation of the government of God, the happiness of all created beings depended upon their perfect accord with its great principles of righteousness.”10
With Jesus coming to undo the rebellion of Adam, His whole life was one of submission to the Father: “ ‘ “Behold, I have come . . . to do Your will, O God” ’ ” (Heb. 10:7). John, referring to the exemplifying life of Christ, challenges believers to “walk in the same manner as He walked” (1 John 2:6). White reaffirms John’s statement adding, “He came not to our world to give the obedience of a lesser God to a greater, but as a man to obey God’s Holy Law, and in this way He is our example.”11 God’s will was of paramount importance for Jesus and He reveals that the divine will always seeks what would be good for humans. Since His will is summarized in the law of love, the Decalogue, Christ submitted to it.
When Satan attempted to get Jesus to worship him, the incarnated Lord immediately quoted the first commandment of the Decalogue (Matt 4:10). He obeyed all of them. This means, then, that the incarnated God worshiped on the seventh-day Sabbath, calling us to follow Him in fellowship with Him and with the Father. In everything He did, He was our model for an upright and virtuous life. Because we should be baptized, He was baptized, because we should pray, He prayed, and because we should serve God and others, He served God and others. Because we should love our enemies, He loved His enemies and prayed for them. Because we should rest on the Sabbath, He rested on the Sabbath. He became human to show us the goodness of God manifested in a life of submission to Him. White comments that “in His life on earth, Christ developed a perfect character, He rendered perfect obedience to His Father’s commandments. In coming to the world in human form . . . He did not become a sinner.”12 Adam disobeyed God, but the new Adam submitted to Him and gives us the power to follow Him.
Incarnation and sacrifice
But the love of God was particularly manifested in Christ’s obedience unto death (Phil. 2:8). God became human in order to battle, on this planet, the forces of evil. He fearlessly faced and defeated them throughout His life, but it was on the cross that their defeat was final. He became human in order to die; not to die as we, naturally, die but to die in order to bring death to an end. He killed death through His death, and, in doing this, He revealed the magnitude of God’s love. “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). “Looking unto Jesus,” White comments, “we see that it is the glory of our God to give.”13
He died because He took upon Himself the sins of the human race and experienced our eternal death. Death prevails as essentially separation and brings with it intense pain. The Son of God, in human flesh, went up to the cross and experienced the divine abandonment that should be ours, and He did it in order for us to have fellowship with God. He experienced the inexpressible pain of God forsakenness: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). White unfolds some of the meaning of such a tragedy saying, “Christ’s heart was pierced by a far sharper pain than that caused by the nails driven into His hands and feet. He was bearing the sins of the whole world, enduring our punishment—the wrath of God against transgression. His trial involved the fierce temptation of thinking that He was forsaken by God. His soul was tortured by the pressure of great darkness, lest He should swerve from His uprightness during the terrible ordeal.”14 With penetrating prophetic insight she adds, “God suffered with His Son, as the divine Being alone could suffer, in order that the world might become reconciled to Him.”15
Only the incarnate God could accomplish this most amazing task as our substitute: “Justice demanded the sufferings of a man. Christ, equal with God, gave the sufferings of a God. He needed no atonement. His suffering was not for any sin he had committed; it was for man—all for man; and his free pardon is accessible to all.”16 This was indeed a majestic revelation of God’s self-sacrificing love. It is in the Cross that we reach the very heart of the incarnation of God; the fullness of divine kenosis.
He descended to the very depths of death and came out Conqueror.
Conclusion
Summarizing, we could say that a true prophet will confirm and even deepen the significance of the incarnation of the Son of God. This has become an inscrutable mystery about which we know little. He permanently became a creature, an earthling, to reveal to us the character of God. As a human, He lived the life that we should live in order for us to fully enjoy it. In His obedience we see our call to follow the incarnated Lord in order to make this planet a better place by loving Him and each other. In His obedience unto death on a cross we find our only way back to God through forgiveness. These biblical insights into the Incarnation are reaffirmed and deepened in the writings of Ellen G. White and give more evidence of her prophetic calling.
1 In the New Testament, the Greek term mustērion refers to God’s plan of salvation that had been hidden in God for ages (Eph. 3:9) but that now has been revealed in Christ who is Himself the “mystery of God” (Col. 2:2; 4:3). In 1 Timothy 3:16 the mystery of godliness “is the Christ-event, as it is described in the following hymn . . . from the cosmic perspective of the incarnation and exaltation and its proclamation.” H. Krämer, “Mustērion mystery, secret,” in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, eds. Horst Robert Balz and Gerhard Schneider (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 448, 449. The fullness of the revelation and understanding of this transcendental mystery is for the believer a task to be accomplished (see Eph. 3:14–19).
2 Ellen G. White, The Faith I Live By (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1973), 48. She also wrote, “The incarnation of Christ has ever been, and will ever remain a mystery.” Ellen G. White, in Francis D. Nichol, ed., Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 5 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1978), 1128, 1129.
3 Nichol, Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 915; cf. ibid., vol. 5, 1129; Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1940), 48. She also states that “it was the marvel of all the universe that Christ should humble Himself to save fallen man. That He who had passed from star to star, from world to world, superintending all, by His providence supplying the needs of every order of being in His vast creation—that He should consent to leave His glory and take upon Himself human nature, was a mystery which the sinless intelligences of other worlds desired to understand.” Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1958), 69.
4 Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Pub. Assn, 1956), 106.
5 Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases (Silver Spring, MD: Ellen G. White Estate, 1981–1983), 16:182.
6 Ellen G. White, “The Vine and the Branches,” Review and Herald, Nov. 9, 1897, 705.
7 The meaning of the present participle, in contrast to the perfect in 1 John 4:2, has been a matter of debate among scholars but it could be understood as conveying a future meaning and therefore referring to the second coming of Christ; see Georg Strecker, The Johannine Letters: A Commentary on 1, 2, and 3 John, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995), 232–236.
8 White, The Desire of Ages, 25.
9 Ibid., 19.
10 Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1950), 493.
11 Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, bk. 3 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1980), 140. She also wrote, “As one of us He was to give an example of obedience. For this He took upon Himself our nature, and passed through our experiences.” White, The Desire of Ages, 24.
12 White, Selected Messages, bk. 3, 133.
13 White, The Desire of Ages, 21.
14 White, Selected Messages, bk. 3, 132.
15 Ellen G. White, “Satan’s Malignity Against Christ and His People,” Review and Herald, Oct. 22, 1895, 674.
16 Ellen G. White, “Christ Our Sacrifice,” Review and Herald, Sept. 21, 1886, 593.Z
