Lesson 2: “The Call of a Prophet”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! |
This week’s lesson is consummately ironic. After last week’s lesson which used Hebrews 1:1,2 as the week’s memory verse—a passage declaring that in the past God spoke to the fathers through prophets in many portions and many ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us in His Son—this week’s entire lesson is spent creating an argument for defending Ellen White as a “non-canonical prophet” using the same explanations for her as they use to defend the biblical prophets Abraham, Elijah, Isaiah, Daniel, and John the Baptist.
Besides displaying a profound lack of understanding that these “last days” belong to a completely new covenant than did the “time past”—a covenant based on a completely different priesthood and law—the authors see no problem with selecting a nineteenth-century woman who happened to endorse visionary revelations of novel doctrines and scriptural interpretations and then proceeding to equate her with the prophets God sent to Israel!
By what objective criteria can they defend Ellen White as “authentic” while judging Joseph Smith, Helena Blavatsky, Charles Taze Russell, Mary Baker Eddy, and any number of others who claim visions from God? This lesson is pure eisegesis, or one might even say it’s an example of cultic indoctrination.
In this edition of Former Adventist Fact Check I will examine the second lesson of the fourth quarter’s Sabbath School curriculum for 2026, a lesson entitled “The Call of a Prophet”.
Context First
The lesson literally takes one Old Testament prophet per day and explains his job and how God called him, inexorably leading to Friday’s lesson in which the authors describe Ellen White’s receiving her first vision at the age of 17 and realizing that God was sending her revelations for the comfort and guidance of the disappointed Millerites.
The contrived argument is explained in the first paragraph of the Teachers Comments:
A biblical prophet’s call is a divine summons in which God directly appoints an individual to speak on His behalf, often through a revelatory experience such as a vision, dream, or audible voice. This call typically involves a commission to proclaim God’s message, to confront sin, and to guide His people, sometimes at great personal cost, as seen in the lives of such prophets as Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. This week’s lesson focuses on the prophetic call in various historical settings and how the prophets’ messages generally addressed the themes of judgment, salvation, and restoration. The discussion culminates in Ellen G. White’s calling as a manifestation of God’s desire to continue communicating with His people in a sinful world.
Just using the above quote as a guide, we see that the first line of argument used to defend a “biblical prophet” is, essentially context. The author argues that a prophet was called to speak to people in a certain cultural or spiritual setting and to help those people get back on the right spiritual track.
In the commentary section of the Teachers Comments, the author develops this argument to place Ellen White into the stream and trajectory of five Old Testament prophets:
God’s call to Abraham (Gen. 12:1) occurred in the aftermath of the confusion of languages, in Genesis 11, when paganism, idolatry, and warfare had won the day. Interestingly, the first time the term prophet” occurs in Scripture applies to Abraham (Gen. 20:7), who functioned as an intercessor. Elijah ministered during a great spiritual crisis in the northern kingdom of Israel, during the reigns of kings Ahab and Ahaziah. Elijah thundered against Baal worship and called Israel to repentance. Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of the four kings of Judah, in the ninth century, when the great challenge was the rise of the empire of Assyria, the greatest threat to Judah during this time. Daniel played a significant role in the kingdoms of Babylon and Persia. John the Baptist heralded the coming of the Messiah in the first century. In postbiblical times, Ellen G. White received her first vision in antebellum America, following the Millerite disappointment.
We need to back up and see the big picture which Scripture presents. God’s call to Abraham was specific. He made covenant promises to him, and the covenant God made with Abraham was unconditional. He even put Abraham to sleep while God Himself in the forms of a smoking oven and a blazing torch moved among the sacrificial animals and declared that He would give Abraham land, seed, and blessing—and He specifically told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved 400 years before He would bring them back to the very land where God covenanted with Abraham. Abraham made NO promises (despite Ellen’s claim in Patriarchs and Prophets that he walked among the sacrificed animals after God had passed between them and promised to obey all His commands).
God’s covenant with Abraham was UNCONDITIONAL. No human participated in the covenant, and nothing can change the promises God made. In fact, that Abrahamic covenant continues today as God works out His eternal plan of redemption. He will yet keep His promises to give Abraham’s descendants the land He promised, and He has already shown that through Abraham’s seed, all the nations of the earth are and will be blessed.
That covenant still remains, unconditional, unchanging, and eternal.
Abraham was called and became our example of believing faith. He believed God, and God credited that belief to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
The next four prophets the lessons name were in a completely different context. They were Israelites. Abraham was NOT an Israelite; in fact, Israel had not yet been born but was still “in the loins” of Abraham.
Four hundred thirty years after God covenanted unconditionally with Abraham, God made another covenant with the nation he had promised to Abraham. After bringing Abraham’s descendants out of Egypt and halting them in the Sinai desert, God made a unique CONDITIONAL covenant with the nation of Israel. This Mosaic covenant was two-way; Israel participated and promised to do all that God commanded them. The Ten Commandments were the central document of this covenant (Ex. 34:27, 28), and this covenant was NOT eternal. It—and its central document—had a beginning and an ending:
And what I am saying is this: the Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to abolish the promise. For if the inheritance is by law, it is no longer by promise, but God has granted it to Abraham through promise. Why the Law then? It was added because of trespasses, having been ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.—Galatians 3:17–19 LSB
The Law and the entire Mosaic covenant was given by God through Moses to Israel at Mt. Sinai 430 years after God put Abraham to sleep and promised him seed, land, and blessing. This covenant did not negate the covenant God made with Abraham, and it was not ADDED to it. It was a completely separate, distinct covenant which operated underneath the umbrella overarching all of the history of God’s work among Abraham’s descendants.
The Mosaic covenant cannot be eternal because it was two-way. It involved human promises which cannot hold eternally. It was a national constitution which described how Israel would function as a nation that worshiped and knew Yahweh as they lived among abysmally pagan, dark, hopeless nations that appeased their gods by offering child sacrifices and practicing temple prostitution.
The Mosaic covenant absolutely forbade such practices and outlined the entire system of sacrifices, rituals, and lifestyle practices that separated them from the pagan gentiles.
The Mosaic covenant was founded upon the levitical priesthood (Hebrews 7:11, 12), and the levitical priesthood defined the entire system of Israelite worship and sacrifice, the shadows God gave His nation to remind them that their sin required death, and only a God-appointed priesthood could mediate atonement and forgiveness. The Israelites were not permitted to offer their sacrifices themselves. Only a representative priest could offer a proper sacrifice, and only an animal substitute was accepted. No person could offer himself or his children to atone for sin.
This Mosaic covenant was in operation from the day it was given on Mt Sinai and lasted until the Seed came—the promised Messiah who would come and FULFILL every single shadow of that law.
When Jesus came, He became the new priest according to the order of Melchizedek instead of Levi. The levites were no longer carrying out temple worship; the sacrifices and rituals were over, the curtain in the temple was torn—and the Lord Jesus became the new Priest of a new covenant based entirely on HIS BLOOD.
According to Hebrews 7:12, with a change of the priesthood comes a change of the law—and the Mosaic covenant is done. The Ten Commandments belong to the obsolete covenant. A new law—the law of Christ—now governs God’s people.
Under the terms of the Mosaic covenant, God gave Israel prophets to remind them of His covenant terms and to give them new details of the ways He will keep His promises to the nation. Not only did the Israelites’ prophets remind the Israelites to repent and to return to the covenant requirements, but He revealed details about how He will yet fulfill His promises to Abraham made before the Mosaic covenant came into existence.
Israelite Prophets
Elijah, the first Israelite prophet named in the lesson, is called a “non-writing prophet”. He left us no books or letters, but he left us a legacy. He called Israel to repentance and reminded them of their covenant obligations to God. He is considered a “type”. Malachi foretold the coming of John the Baptist by calling him “Elijah”:
“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh.”—Malachi 4:5 LSB
Jesus also confirmed this prophetic identity of John the Baptist in Mark 9:11–13.
Elijah further appeared with Moses on the Mt. of Transfiguration where they represented the Law and the Prophets where Jesus was announced by God as the one who whom people should listen—and the “Law” and the “Prophets” disappeared from sight.
Elijah also plays a role in the last days in some way—whether personally or, again, as a type of a man who is to come, when the two witnesses of Revelation 11 come in the spirit and power demonstrated by Moses and Elijah.
Elijah, therefore, played a significant role in Israel, both at the time he came in person and as a type throughout the fulfillment of the Mosaic covenant.
Isaiah was also functioning under the terms of the Mosaic covenant. Isaiah wrote about one hundred years before the nation of Judah went into Babylonian captivity. God gave him prophecies of His long-term promises to restore Israel and Judah and to bring about ultimate restoration and the kingdom of God. Isaiah contains the most complete description of the substitutionary atonement of Christ and even of His resurrection.
Isaiah’s role is unique, and his book is perhaps the most significant evidence of God’s eternal plan of redemption for His people, both Israelite and gentile. In fact, Isaiah’s authenticity was established when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. A complete scroll of Isaiah was among the scrolls—a scroll dating from about 100 BC—a discovery which ended the argument that the book of Isaiah had been written AFTER the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Daniel wrote during the Babylonian exile. Contrary to what the lesson said, Daniel 1 is not about Daniel choosing to follow health principles when put to the test in Babylon. In fact, the lesson stated that Daniel “stood for the health principles that he had learned as a child.”
No!
The food laws were part of the Mosaic covenant, specific laws God gave His people so that they would be separate from gentiles. They were not to fraternize nor intermarry nor become involved with pagan worship which often did include eating foods offered to pagan idols. They were to keep their Jewish seed pure. These food laws were taken in the body of Christ to the cross where He broke down the dividing wall between Jew and gentile. Paul explains:
Therefore, remember that formerly you–the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” [which is] performed in the flesh by [human] hands– [remember] that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both [groups] one and broke down the dividing wall of the partition by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, the Law of commandments [contained] in ordinances, so that in Himself He might create the two into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having in Himself put to death the enmity.—Ephesians 2:11–16 LSB
For the lesson to say that Daniel kept the health principles of his childhood is to completely misrepresent reality! Daniel was true to the Mosaic covenant God made between Israel and Himself. He was choosing loyalty to God over political pressure. Moreover, we learn in Daniel 9 that Daniel was not a vegetarian the rest of his life. Jewish food laws allowed meat, and we learn that later Daniel had fasted from meat while he prayed for two weeks.
No, the issue was never “health”. Daniel honored the covenant with God instead of giving in to the idol-sacrificed meat of the king’s table. He honored God.
Furthermore, Daniel was chosen by God to see the future picture of gentile domination of Israel and to be told that days are coming when his people (the Jews) would experience great tribulation and that Michael the archangel, who is the “prince of your people” (the Jews) would arise to their defense. Also, the book of Daniel is the most clear reference to a future resurrection of the saints found in the Old Testament.
Daniel’s prophecies are unique in the Old Testament, and he wrote at a time when Israel needed to understand God’s plans and purpose as their exile came to an end.
Finally, John the Baptist was foretold by several Old Testament prophets, and as we have already said, he was called the Elijah who was to come. His job as the last Old Testament prophet—the last prophet to function under the old covenant—was to prepare the way for the Messiah to come, calling Israel to repentance and to become ready to meet and recognize the fulfillment of their prophesied Messiah.
What about Ellen?
Then lesson then leaps to Ellen White and attempts to create a scenario justifying her rise to prophetic status at a time when the people were in need of a voice from the Lord and spiritual leadership. Yet the context was completely different.
Ellen White lived LONG after Jesus was on earth. The age of the new covenant was already over 1800 years old. Ellen White lived in what Hebrews 1:1, 2 identifies as “the last days” when God no longer speak through prophets but in His Son! Ellen was not called by God; her messages are internally inconsistent, and she has never endorsed the biblical Trinity, the biblical nature of man being born dead spiritually, or the biblical gospel nor the completed atonement.
No one who teaches a different gospel, who adds Sabbath-keeping to “believing in Jesus” can be considered a biblical prophet. Her writings affirm Jesus to be Michael the archangel; they declare Sabbath to be eternal, saying the saved will keep the Sabbath in heaven with God. Her writings absolutely contradict Scripture although Adventist pick and choose her better statements and create an image of a woman ahead of her time who posts people to Christ.
No!
It is illegitimate for Adventists to use the Old Testament prophets as templates for endorsing Ellen White. Ellen White was not under the Mosaic covenant, and the context of Old Testament prophets is nothing like the new covenant gift of prophecy which Paul describes. Neither is Ellen a new covenant prophet; her messages deny the finished work of Jesus and bind the consciences of her followers to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, to believe that they are merely bodies that breathe, that there is no eternal hell, that the dead cease to exist, and that Jesus has forever forfeited His divine attribute of omnipresence!
This entire Sabbath School lesson has built a false argument to sustain its internal mandate that Ellen White must be believed to be a biblical prophet. Yet none of the arguments in this lesson can survive the scrutiny of Scripture——even the Scriptures used within the lessons!
I appeal to you, Adventist: be reconciled to Christ. Let go of your grip on Ellen White and be willing to repent of having believed the words of an extra-biblical prophet. Ask the Lord to reveal Himself and His word to you, and begin reading the Bible without commentaries. Put away your Adventist publications and ask God to teach you through His word.
Admit that you are helpless to recommend yourself to God, and repent of your Adventist confusion. See Jesus taking your sin in His body to the cross; see Him dying and being buried, and see Him rising on the third day, shattering your curse of death by His sufficient blood sacrifice!
Turn away from Ellen. See that Jesus alone is God’s voice to us now, and trust Him. He will give you life, and you will know what it means to know God’s will without the help of an extra-biblical prophet. †
This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
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