The Original Meaning And The Author’s Intentions

This is a basic principle, not only of interpretation but also of literary ethics. Morally speaking, the only meaning that should be given to a statement is what the author had in mind when he or she made it. One of the best examples in the Scriptures is Christ’s parables. The Lord used them as extraordinary illustrations of the truths He was attempting to teach. That was their purpose and intention. To try to establish a doctrine based on a parable, or to base an entire interpretation on the details of the story, is to go beyond the Lord’s original intention in using the parable. Take, for instance, the parable of the ten virgins. In this parable, Christ’s undoubted intention was to illustrate the necessity of being prepared for His coming. To try to reach other conclusions, based on incidental details of the parable itself, for example, on the number, the identity, or the gender of the people involved, is ridiculous. To believe or to teach that only ten people will be waiting for the Lord (the ten virgins) or to deduce that they will only be single women (virgins) is to totally miss the intent of the parable, and to distort its meaning. Of course, we are using a simple, obvious illustration—so obvious that the reader will be tempted to smile. However, conclusions have been reached about this same parable that are not so conspicuous. More than once the idea has been put forth that “half” the members of the church are unprepared for the coming of the Lord, based on the fact that half of the virgins were unprepared.VOTS 103.2

During the early days of the Advent movement there was a case of misinterpretation of this parable that required the intervention of the Holy Spirit through visions to correct. We referred to this story in a previous chapter. After the Lord did not appear in the fall of 1844, some of our pioneers took the statement in Matthew 25:10 that is part of the story narrated in the parable “And the door was shut,” to develop an important doctrine referring to the time of the cessation of God’s grace for the salvation of sinners. The sentence was given such importance that most of those forming the group that remained after the disappointment of 1844 believed there was no longer any possibility of salvation for humanity in general. Ellen White herself originally believed this idea. ^{3See the references in chapter 2, and Selected Messages 1:63.} It was necessary for the Holy Spirit to correct this point in the messenger’s mind so that she would be in a position to correct the brethren.VOTS 104.1