Chapter 21 — The Adventist Health Program

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS HAS promises for the present time as well as for the life to come. When properly understood and followed, Bible truths influence greatly our manner of life and the degree of happiness which we enjoy. Several great religious awakenings in the past, such as those of the Wesleys in England and Hauge in Norway, have also brought in important changes an reforms of a material kind. This is seen in the work of God’s servants in Bible times. Moses, the great prophet and leader of God’s people of old, was not only the founder of Israel as a nation but also the instigator of beneficial civic reforms. His writings, so full of spiritual or moral instruction, also dealt with questions of clothing, housing, civil government and customs, not to mention matters of eating, cleanliness and other items of health. In like manner, David, spoken of as a prophet, brought great material changes and prosperity to Israel, as did Samuel and others of old.FSG 297.1

This same principle is clearly seen in the reform work of John the Baptist. His simplicity of dress and diet was more than a protest against the indulgences and pride and luxury of that time; it was an example of healthful living that others were to follow. The temporal advantages and blessings, however, of the gospel are seen most clearly in the life of Jesus, who, while teaching the ways of God in truth, healed the sick, fed the hungry, and encouraged and comforted people everywhere.FSG 297.2

This important principle that health and other material blessings belong with spiritual awakening is especially evident in the work and teachings of Mrs. E. G. White. Her writings made the Adventist Church health conscious and gave it definite instruction on how to keep well.FSG 298.1

The keynote of her messages was always religious. The message emphasized the forgotten Bible truth that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and must be kept clean and fit. They stressed the value of rational self-control and the importance of good health. They even taught that our health must “be as sacredly guarded as the character.” Over and over again we read that “it is a duty to know how to preserve the body in the very best condition of health.... It is just as much sin to violate the laws of our being as to break one of the ten commandments, for we cannot do either without breaking God’s law.”—Testimonies for the Church 2:70. We found, too, through the years, that gospel ministers who accepted and lived health reform had better success than others and that all our members were helped by this light from the Lord.FSG 298.2

God’s messengers are always ahead of their age. The moral and the spiritual value of healthful living are today recognized by many religious leaders and churches. Both the press and the pulpit in our time give excellent instruction on health and how to preserve it. But that was not at all the case a century ago and less. Even in the early days of the advent movement, good health was not considered a part of good religion. It was commonly taught that the body was an enemy of the soul rather than the temple of the Holy Spirit. I remember so well how church bodies and even preachers opposed and stirred up prejudice against Adventist believers because of their health teaching. Some of these clergymen later came to our sanitariums to be cured—and even converted to the health principles taught by the Lord’s messenger. They even went so far as to acknowledge that Christians should not violate the laws of nature by their unhealthy manner of living, because there was the closest connection between Bible sanctification and genuine health reform. The good fruitage of the rational health teaching of Mrs. White is admitted not by Adventists alone but by literally millions of people the world around.FSG 298.3

The Spirit of prophecy health principles were first given to help Adventists, and they greatly needed the light. In the early years of the advent message, many of its pioneers suffered from ill-health. James White, the first leader in the movement, lost his health from overwork and unhealthful ways of living. In fact, he broke so completely that he was unfit to labor for several years, and the result was an early death. Our first missionary to be sent overseas, J. N. Andrews, a man of great intellect, and more than anyone else the builder of the advent doctrines, died after a few years abroad. Switzerland, where he lived, is a healthful country, and there was no reason at all, humanly speaking, why he should have succumbed at so early an age to tuberculosis of the lungs. When word came of his illness, our foremost physician at that time was sent to Europe, in part at least to visit Elder Andrews and see whether he could help him health wise. The doctor reported that it was unavoidable that Elder Andrews should lose his health, because of the way in which he lived. He seemed not to have realized that when people go from one country to another they must study carefully the effects of another climate, other kinds of food, and housing conditions. To us now, after having sent hundreds of missionaries abroad, these facts are well known; but in those days, people did not study the question of health as they do now. Some of these early experiences were a great perplexity to our people, and gave them a feeling that they needed to know more about the laws of God in nature.FSG 299.1

This matter was called to the attention of Mrs. White in a vision concerning health, the cause of disease, and proper remedies, which she had at the house of Aaron Hilliard at Otsego, Michigan, June 6, 1863. When this great subject of health reform was opened before her in vision, the topic was new not only among Adventists but among people generally. She was definitely instructed of the Lord that there should be developed among Adventists a rational health program, often called health reform. Later years have proved this to be of utmost value to mankind.FSG 300.1

The Adventist principles of healthful living at first were most unpopular. People ridiculed the idea of whole-wheat bread, the use of fruit, and the danger of frequent eating. Many scoffed at the thought that the Christian religion in any way gave instruction on health. We were derided because we would not eat pork and thought that the Bible made plain that some animals were clean and others were unclean. We were constantly told that the idea that religion had anything to do with eating or dressing was Jewish. The Jews were under certain restrictive laws, but Christians, they said, were free to live, eat, dress, work, and play without any regard to health. In this, of course, a great change has come. The principles of health laid down by Mrs. White in those early years are accepted now and in part applied in every civilized country of the world.FSG 300.2

The doctrine of health as set forth in the Spirit of prophecy emphasizes certain great principles. The first of these is that the laws of nature are as sacred as the moral laws of God and should be as implicitly obeyed.FSG 300.3

“As the foundation principle of all education in these lines, the youth should be taught that the laws of nature are the laws of God, as truly divine as are the precepts of the Ten Commandments. The laws that govern our physical organism, God has written upon every nerve, muscle, and fiber of the body. Every careless or willful violation of these laws is a sin against our Creator.”—Education, 196, 197.FSG 301.1

In those early years it was stated again and again, and generally believed everywhere, that disease was inherited or came as an accident by the inscrutable provisions of God. In contrast to this, the Spirit of prophecy set forth that disease was a definite effect of certain causes and that if we would avoid disease and build for health, we must shun those causes.FSG 301.2

“Man has disregarded the laws of his being, and disease has been steadily increasing. The cause has been followed by the effect.... God has established the laws of our being. If we violate these laws, we must, sooner or later, pay the penalty. The laws of our being cannot be more successfully violated than by crowding upon the stomach unhealthy food, because craved by a morbid appetite.”—Health: or How to Live, No. 1, pages 51, 52.FSG 301.3

“The human family have brought upon themselves diseases of various forms by their own wrong habits. They have not studied how to live healthfully, and their transgression of the laws of their being has produced a deplorable state of things.”—Ibid., no. 3, Page 49.FSG 301.4

The early Adventist health reform, however, not only pointed out that disease came as a certain reaping after sowing, but it set forth strongly the real work of a physician. It was urged that physicians should be educators, that their first work must be to teach the people how to live so as to have good health. “The true physician is an educator.... It is his endeavor not only to teach right methods for the treatment of the sick, but to encourage right habits of living, and to spread a knowledge of right principles.”—The Ministry of Healing, 125.FSG 301.5

People had not thought of doctors in that light. They thought that a doctor was called in to administer some drug that in a miraculous way would banish disease. They had never thought of a doctor as one who would teach them how to keep well rather than as one who would help them to get well when sick.FSG 302.1

In those early years, what was called the science of healing medicine was mostly the practice of giving drugs. Patent medicines of every kind were common. All sorts of foolish remedies such as plasters and pills were administered freely by the people, and about all doctors usually gave was some form of drug. Against this extravagant use of drugs by physicians, the writings of Mrs. White in the early years contained a strong protest.FSG 302.2

“More deaths have been caused by drug-taking than from all other causes combined. If there was in the land one physician in the place of thousands, a vast amount of premature mortality would be prevented. Multitudes of physicians, and multitudes of drugs, have cursed the inhabitants of the earth, and have carried thousands and tens of thousands to untimely graves.”—Health: or How to Live, no. 3, page 59.FSG 302.3

“Physicians, by administering their drug-poisons, have done very much to increase the depreciation of the race, physically, mentally, and morally. Everywhere you may go you will see deformity, disease and imbecility, which in very many cases can be traced directly back to the drug-poisons, administered by the hand of a doctor, as a remedy for some of life’s ills.”—Ibid., page 51.FSG 302.4

Mrs. White makes mention of a certain case, a sick woman whom she knew, and writes the following:FSG 302.5

“He makes the case a grave one, and administers his poisons, which, if he were sick, he would not venture to take himself. The patient grows worse, and poisonous drugs are more freely administered, until nature is overpowered in her efforts, and gives up the conflict, and the mother dies. She was drugged to death. Her system was poisoned beyond remedy. She was murdered.”—Ibid., pages 49, 50.FSG 302.6

About this time, partly because of the prevailing drug habit and the increase of sickness, some religious people began to teach extreme views concerning healing. They paid no attention to the laws of nature. They boasted that all remedies were wicked and that doctors were servants of the evil one. The Spirit of prophecy, while stressing strongly the Bible teaching of divine healing, did not in any way join in with these fanatical ideas of healing, but taught that Christian physicians did a great work for the Lord.FSG 303.1

Mrs. White stated distinctly that there were certain remedies which it was proper to use. She also emphasized that although faith and prayer were of great importance and the true religion of Jesus with its comforting promises was a great help to health, yet we ourselves were to do everything we could to restore health. Of this we read:FSG 303.2

“It is no denial of faith to co-operate with God, and to place themselves in the condition most favorable to recovery. God has put it in our power to obtain a knowledge of the laws of life.... We have the sanction of the word of God for the use of remedial agencies.... Christ made use of the simple agencies of nature. While He did not give countenance to drug medication, He sanctioned the use of simple and natural remedies.”—The Ministry of Healing, 232, 233.FSG 303.3