Appendices A & B: Law and Gospel Blended in Ellen White's Testimony

Synopsis

Compiled from the EGW 1888 Materials, these appendices show that Ellen White independently affirmed the very insight Prescott had just published in 'The Law in Christ.' Her 1896 letter to Uriah Smith, written days after his final installment appeared, teaches that the law is to be seen from the mercy side rather than merely the prohibitory side, and that as received in Christ it becomes the believer's own idea, lifting him above sin's power. From Minneapolis in 1888 onward she repeatedly insisted that 'the law and the gospel are so blended that the truth cannot be presented as it is in Jesus' without uniting them, and that 'the law is the gospel of Christ veiled; the gospel of Jesus is nothing more or less than the law defined.' Appendix B gathers her statements that the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus in Revelation 14:12 are of equal importance in the third angel's message; the commandments had been proclaimed, but the faith of Jesus—Christ as sin-bearer and sin-pardoning Saviour—had been left comparatively untouched. The lesson for evangelism today is unmistakable: any preaching of law without the gospel, or gospel without the law, mars and marginalizes the very message God has committed to His people for these last days.