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Understanding Ellen White - Contents
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    Ellen White’s incarnational view of inspiration

    Ellen White illustrated and compared inspiration to the incarnation of Jesus. She saw divine revelation and the human experience as blended. Thus more simplistic approaches such as verbal, encounter, or even thought inspiration are limited in scope and do not individually capture the complexities of the divine/ human revelation and inspiration process. Two statements help clarify her view.UEGW 37.4

    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 Timothy 3:16); yet they are expressed in the words of men. . . . The Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, presents a union of the divine and the human. Such a union existed in the nature of Christ, who was the Son of God and the Son of man. Thus it is true of the Bible, as it was of Christ, that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). 16EGW, Selected Messages, 1:25.UEGW 37.5

    The Lord speaks to human beings in imperfect speech, in order that the degenerate senses, the dull, earthly perception, of earthly beings may comprehend His words. Thus is shown God’s condescension. He meets fallen human beings where they are. The Bible, perfect as it is in its simplicity, does not answer to the great ideas of God; for infinite ideas cannot be perfectly embodied in finite vehicles of thought. 17Ibid., 22.UEGW 38.1

    The divine message is understood in the mind of prophetic messenger through an organization of ideas and thoughts. It becomes a part of the prophet’s orientation and experience. Ellen White’s focus was on the message. Words convey thoughts and are therefore very important, but for Ellen White the emphasis was on the thoughts. She was always careful to give preeminence to the divine activity in the prophetic revelation process. She attributed the thoughts she received to God rather than herself. In her best-known statement on inspiration, she drew from the wording of Calvin Stowe but changed the words to reflect her own view. 18C. E. Stowe, Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, Both Canonical and the Apocryphal (Hartford, CT: Hartford Publishing, 1869), 19. Stowe wrote that the thoughts were not inspired but rather the men were inspired. He further suggested that the prophet “ conceived” the thoughts. Ellen White completely removed Stowe’s idea that the thoughts were not inspired and wrote that the Holy Ghost “imbues” the prophet with thoughts. 19EGW, Selected Messages, 1:21; see diagram on p. 34 above.UEGW 38.2

    When the Holy Spirit works through the process of inspiration, He is not limited to only one aspect of the human messenger. The mind—including thoughts, emotions, and personality—and the body and its sensory responses are all involved. The whole person is brought under the direction of the Holy Spirit. Yet the human messenger remains with all of his or her human weaknesses. God condescends in order to enable us to better understand and relate to His communication.UEGW 38.3

    It was through her senses that Ellen White gained an understanding of the divine message. Through visions and in other ways, God guided, influenced, and sometimes even controlled her human senses, including visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and her mental, emotional, and social responses in order to communicate with her. Ellen White would often receive visionary experiences that included pictorial depictions and verbal explanations. She saw all of these as valid aspects for God to use in the revelation and inspiration process as it related to her work as a special prophetic messenger of the Lord. It was an incarnational or wholistic process.UEGW 38.4

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