Many people wrongfully believe/assume that Ellen White was the originator of Seventh-Day Adventist teaching. This is incorrect. She functioned as the conduit that God was supposedly using to give confirmation on certain doctrines—this confirmation supposedly coming through visions from God after long periods of study.
She documents this for us in her book Early Writings and explains how exactly this worked. The early Seventh-Day Adventist’s (known as the Little Flock at that time) would be studying the Bible together, sometimes all through the night. Ellen says during these sessions, she couldn’t understand the reasoning of the men doing the studying because her “mind was locked” and she “could not comprehend the meaning of the scriptures” they were studying.
But when the men would come to an impasse or disagreement regarding a passage, Ellen would conveniently be taken into vision from God and shown the correct interpretation of the passage to share with the others. She functioned as the “stamp of approval” and lifeline from God that supposedly led to the correct interpretation of any given passage.
This is how she still functions from the grave in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church to this day. They believe that her writings are divinely inspired and correct inaccurate interpretations of scripture. Her statements and commentary on any given passage are seen as the correct and infallible interpretation revealed by God to their movement. For a good example of this, watch our response to a popular Seventh-Day Adventist pastor and his use of them.
