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    Linkage of the Health Message With the Gospel Commission

    Ellen White consistently linked the health emphasis with the “third angel’s message” as close as the “hand is with the body.” 15Testimonies for the Church 3:62. That is to say, the health message constituted a very important aspect of the “everlasting gospel” (Revelation 14:6). This fundamental linkage is based on three principles:MOL 291.14

    The Humanitarian principle. In many ways, by example and teaching, Ellen White emphasized that the “work of health reform is the Lord’s means for lessening suffering in our world.” 16Testimonies for the Church 9:112.MOL 292.1

    The Evangelical principle. Ellen White was instructed (and her own experience validated the principle) that health reform is to be the bridge over which the gospel will meet people where they are. She called the health message a “great entering wedge ... the door through which the truth for this time is to find entrance to many homes ... [It] will do much toward removing prejudice against our evangelical work.” 17Evangelism, 513, 514MOL 292.2

    Specifically, in regard to Adventist healthcare institutions, she wrote: “The great object of receiving unbelievers into the institution [the sanitarium] is to lead them to embrace the truth.” 18Testimonies for the Church 1:560.MOL 292.3

    The Soteriological principle. This third principle supplied the Adventist distinctive to nineteenth-century health reform: the Adventist emphasis on health was to help “fit a people for the coming of the Lord.” “He who cherishes the light which God has given upon health reform, has an important aid in the work of becoming sanctified through the truth, and fitted for immortality.” 19Testimonies for the Church 3:161; Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 10MOL 292.4

    This threefold linkage has not always been understood. Some made the health message an end in itself in developing a worldwide network of hospitals and clinics; others made the health message into a compelling public relations stratagem whereby non-Adventists would become interested enough to sit through an evangelistic sermon. Both were worthy uses of Adventist health principles—but short of the primary purpose that made Ellen White’s health emphasis distinctive. The primary purpose was to join the spiritual and the physical on the practical, daily level of the average person.MOL 292.5

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