A Personal and Frail Experience

The key phrase in the above quotation is “Unless he makes it his life business to behold the uplifted Saviour.” First, it is a personal matter; only by individually beholding Jesus and laying claim upon the promised merits of a risen Saviour can the experience be enjoyed. Second, the experience is one that must be renewed daily and maintained by keeping the eyes on Jesus. It can be had and enjoyed today, and lost tomorrow. A. W. Spalding put it well as he wrote of the 1888 experience:3BIO 414.5

Justification by faith, the foundation truth of salvation through Christ, is the most difficult of all truths to keep in the experience of the Christian. It is easy of profession, but elusive in application.—Origin and History, vol. 2, p. 281.3BIO 415.1

Ellen White, in one way or another, reminded those who listened to her discourses, and who read her books and articles, of the vital place this experience held in character building, in daily victorious living, and in salvation. As noted, the Minneapolis experience did not become a fetish with her. In fact, the experience of living the life of righteousness by faith may be had with no reference to or knowledge of the struggle at Minneapolis in 1888, with its animosities and bitterness.3BIO 415.2

Nor need its precious elements, easily within the grasp of both the primitive believer and the most profound scholar, be lost for the lack of complicated formulas or definitions. Ellen White hinted at this in a statement written in 1891.3BIO 415.3

Many commit the error of trying to define minutely the fine points of distinction between justification and sanctification. Into the definitions of these two terms they often bring their own ideas and speculations. Why try to be more minute than is Inspiration on the vital question of righteousness by faith? Why try to work out every minute point, as if the salvation of the soul depended upon all having exactly your understanding of this matter? All cannot see in the same line of vision.—Manuscript 21, 1891 (see also The SDA Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, on Romans 3:24-28,p. 1072).3BIO 415.4

The events of late 1888 and the few years that followed reveal the story of the fruitage of the momentous meeting held in Minneapolis.3BIO 415.5