The Most Demonic Doctrine of Ellen White

An Overview of the Shut Door Delusion

By Dirk Anderson, November 2024

Ellen White played a key role in promoting and proclaiming a satanic doctrine that became embedded in the SDA sect. Her visions, angelic messages, and writings were essential in establishing this demonic doctrine amongst the Advent people.

The Origin of the Satanic Campaign Against the Gospel

When Christ began establishing His kingdom on earth, He launched a campaign to save souls and destroy the spiritual kingdom of Satan through the proclamation of the gospel message. The apostles accepted the Great Commission of Christ to take the good news of salvation to every person (Matt 28:19,20). Christ explained that the gospel was to be preached until His return:

And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come (Matt 24:14).

As soon as the apostles began preaching the Kingdom of God, the devil began a campaign to stop that proclamation. One of the devil's most effective tactics was to use religious people to attack the true Church of God. The New Testament is full of examples of spiritual opposition to the gospel, often manifesting through deception, hindrance, or resistance to the truth of God's Word. Acts chapter 13 is a microcosm of Satan's opposition to the gospel proclamation. When Paul and Barnabas attempted to preach the truth in Antioch, they were opposed at every step. In verse 8, the sorcerer Elymas "withstood" the apostles. Later, after the apostles persuaded many of the Jews to accept "the grace of God," the remainder of the Jews "were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming" (Acts 13:43-45). This chapter, along with many other incidents in the New Testament, demonstrates that it is Satan's purpose to hinder or thwart the gospel proclamation (1 Thes 2:18, Gal 5:7). His methods include contradicting the Word of God and blaspheming.

Ellen White's Satanic Campaign Against the Gospel

When William Miller first started preaching the imminent Advent of Christ, he was welcomed in American churches. However, by 1842, Protestant scholars had debunked Miller's proofs and churches started closing their doors to Millerite preachers. In subsequent years, it was not uncommon for churches to disfellowship Millerite believers who publicly espoused their beliefs. One family expelled from their Methodist church in September of 1943 was the Harmon family. This must have been a bitter experience for young Ellen Harmon. In 1843, Millerite preachers began labeling Protestant churches as "Babylon" and demanded that their followers leave those churches in order to be saved. Charles Fitch said in 1843:

If you are a Christian, come out of Babylon! If you intend to be found a Christian when Christ appears, come out of Babylon, and come out NOW!¹

By mid-1844, other Millerite preachers were associating the Second Angel's Message of Revelation 14 to the Millerite Movement. They began demanding that Advent believers depart from their churches. Thus, great animosity developed between the Millerites and the Protestant churches. A spiritual war commenced and that war continues to be waged by the Seventh-day Adventist [SDA] sect to this very day.

After the Great Disappointment, roughly 80% of Millerites returned to their former churches (or a similar church). These people came to the conclusion that they were temporarily deluded by the false and fanatical teachings of the false prophet William Miller, and it made sense for them to admit their mistake and rejoin their former brethren. They realized that God did not call them out of their former churches, but their own delusion called them out. Their reasoning for returning was logical and Biblical. These lost sheep were accepted back into their churches with open arms.

About 20% of the Adventists chose to remain separated. At first, they assumed the door of salvation was shut for the world and that there was no point in working for the salvation of the lost. The teaching is based upon the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25. These early Adventists firmly believed that they had given the "midnight cry" (Matt. 25:6) and that Jesus, the Bridegroom, came to the "marriage supper" on October 22, 1844:

And while they [foolish virgins] went to buy, the Bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with Him to the marriage; and the door was shut. Matt. 25:10

They taught that on October 22, 1844, Christ got up and moved from the Holy Place into the Most Holy Place. In so doing, Christ left his mediatorial role and shut the "door of mercy" or the "door of salvation" to all except those Advent believers who had joined Miller's 1844 movement. They believed that Jesus was "shut in" with His special people, preparing them to receive His kingdom. They believed that since October 22, 1844, Christ was ministering only to Israel (the Advent believers). This heretical error led them to stop proclaiming the gospel. It placed them in the position of siding with Satan in his campaign against the gospel of Jesus Christ. By early 1845, the prophetess Ellen Harmon was endorsing the shut door of salvation in her visions.² However, this shut door doctrine was short-lived among the majority of Adventists. By May of 1845, at a conference in Albany, N.Y., the great majority rejected it. They also relinquished their false claims that Protestant churches were Babylon and God called them out of those churches.

One small group of Adventists defied the Albany Conference. That group of about 50 people was led by Ellen Harmon, James White, and Joseph Bates, the founders of Seventh-day Adventism. They were known as "shut door Adventists" or "shut door Sabbatarians." They could not bring themselves to accept church discipline and admit they were mistaken about 1844. They concocted an entire Sanctuary doctrine to try to convince themselves and others that something of relevance happened in 1844. They continued to insist that it was Christ who called them out of "apostate" Protestant churches, not their own apostate delusions. They rebelled against church authority and held the door of salvation shut against Protestant churches and anyone else who had not accepted Miller's false teaching. They blasted Protestant ministers of the gospel as false teachers.³ Ironically, these ministers were the very ones obeying Christ by taking the gospel to the lost while the so-called remnant were doing nothing to save the lost. In their narcissistic mindset, the Whites imagined God had some great and glorious reason for "calling them out of Babylon." They exalted themselves as heads of a new movement. Ellen White began to be recognized as a modern John the Baptist and James as a modern-day Moses who would led an Exodus from the churches of Babylon.⁴

One of the principal doctrines espoused by James and Ellen White was that the door of salvation was shut upon all who rejected William Miller's false message. The Whites adopted Bates' theory that God was testing Adventists for a period of seven years to determine how many would accept the Sabbath doctrine. The period began in 1844 at the Great Disappointment and was supposed to end in 1851 with the return of Christ.⁵ During this period, the shut door Adventists ceased from proclaiming the gospel message. This was in direct contradiction to the word of Jesus, who said that the gospel was to be preached until His return (Matt 24:14). Any teaching that stops the gospel from being proclaimed is entirely satanic. Mrs. White taught the shut door not from a single vision, but from at least seven recorded visions, and possibly many other visions. Her own writings show that these visions convinced Sister Durben, Brother Stowell, and many others to adopt the satanic shut door teaching.⁶ This satanic doctrine forms the foundation of the SDA sect.

In 1851, after Christ failed to return, the Whites quietly modified their teaching on the shut door to allow for sinners to be converted. By 1853, James admitted the shut door prophecy was yet future.⁷ They distanced themselves from Bates, and moved westward. James White abandoned his shut door magazine, Present Truth, and started a new magazine, the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald. He reprinted his wife's visions in 1851, but was careful to remove those parts referencing the erroneous Shut Door doctrine. Prior to 1851, the doctrine appeared frequently in James' magazine as if it was of profound significance, but afterward, the doctrine disappeared entirely from the group's publications. Most new converts to the sect never heard about it nor had any idea that their prophet had seen a shut door of salvation in her visions.

SDA Sect Founded on a Satanic Doctrine

Even after modifying the shut door doctrine in 1851 to allow non-Christians to be saved, the Whites apparently continued harboring resentment against the Protestant churches who had dared to reject the false teachings of William Miller and had dared to expel Ellen from her church. Ellen White continued to insist for the rest of her life that a door of salvation was shut upon them in 1844 and they could not be saved.⁸ Ellen and James White made it their lifelong ambition to get revenge upon Apostate Protestantism by constantly criticizing them, blaspheming their leaders, and preying upon their members.

In 1885, Mrs. White made her true feelings known about non-SDA Christians. She said they were "worse than heathen." However, for the sake of winning these non-SDA’s over to the SDA Church it was best for SDAs to practice deception and not allow non-SDAs to know their true feelings:

We can do nothing that would close up the way before us in this country like taking a position of superiority and putting before the people that we consider them heathen. In truth they are worse than heathen, but this we are not to tell them.⁹

Under Ellen White's guidance, the sect was focused on their special "mission" to convince other Christians to "come out of Babylon" and accept the SDA Sabbath teaching and other quirky SDA doctrines. Mrs. White described "Babylon" as "the churches who will not receive the messages of warning the Lord has given in the first, second, and third angels' messages."¹⁰ The first angel's message was the Millerite message of the imminent return of Christ. The second message was about leaving non-SDA churches and joining the SDA sect. The third message was that the Sabbath was the "test" that determines who receives the Seal of God in the last days. In her evangelistic book Great Controversy, Ellen described Sunday keepers as having the Mark of the Beast and Sabbatarians as having the Seal of God.¹¹ Just as some Millerites made leaving Protestant churches a requirement for salvation, Ellen White made Sabbath-keeping a requirement to receive the Seal of God and be saved at the return of Christ.

In order to eliminate other Sabbath-keeping groups from salvation, the Whites made it clear that the "remnant" not only kept all Ten of the Commandments but also had the Testimony of Jesus or Spirit of Prophecy (Rev 14:11, 19:10). It was proclaimed that Ellen White manifested the gift of prophecy. Thus, within Seventh-day Adventism she was exalted to be the Testimony of Jesus or the Spirit of Prophecy.¹² This clever move eliminated other Sabbath-keeping groups like the Seventh Day Baptists from laying claim to being the remnant. Originally, the living prophetess satisfied this requirement, but after Ellen White died this understanding was downgraded to be her writings.

In the Great Controversy, Ellen White envisioned the SDA Movement as completing the Protestant Reformation. Just as Protestants left Catholicism, now Protestants were expected to leave their churches and join Seventh-day Adventism. Mrs. White proclaimed, "The churches have grieved the Spirit of the Lord, and it has been in a great measure withdrawn."¹³ Non-SDAs were to leave their churches which were now bereft of the Holy Spirit and join the SDA sect where they could again enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit. The entire mission of the SDA sect became focused on converting other Christians to adopt SDA doctrines. The "enemy" was not the world or heathens—the enemy was Sunday-keeping Christians. They needed to be "converted."

The Whites approved of sending "missionaries" to Christian nations of Europe, South America, Canada, and Australia in the hopes of converting those Christians to Seventh-day Adventism. Even Ellen White went on so-called "mission trips" to Canada, Europe, and Australia. Even when the SDAs sent their missionaries to non-Christian nations in Africa, other non-SDA missionaries complained because the SDAs spent more effort trying to steal their newly converted Christians rather than convert the heathen. Thus, Ellen White perverted the Gospel Commission. Instead of seeking and saving the lost, the sect prioritized converting members of other Christian denominations.

Perverting the Great Commission

While the shut door Adventists started preaching the gospel again in 1851, it was not the gospel of Christ. It was another gospel. Instead of targeting the "lost," their books and evangelistic materials were overwhelmingly geared toward proselytizing other Christians. For its entire existence, the SDA sect has been a curse to the Christian world, as they invest nearly all their effort in trying to convince other Christians of Ellen White's understanding of the "Three Angels Messages." This produces a constant disruptive churn within Christiandom where SDAs recruit people to leave their churches and join the SDA sect, and then 70% of these people wake up and realize their mistake and leave the sect. Instead of focusing on spreading the gospel, non-SDA ministers must spend their efforts fending off SDA "evangelistic" efforts. This constant churn hampers the progress of the Gospel Commission.

The SDA sect has become a revolving door, where Christians are sucked in by smooth evangelists but the majority end up leaving after discovering the truth they were not told during the crusade. This churn is a sign of spiritual sickness. Following the leadership of Ellen White, the sect has aimed its weapons of warfare against other Christian denominations for nearly two centuries when it could have been taking the true gospel to the world. This is the poisonous fruit of Ellen White's sectarianism!

It is time for the leadership of the SDA sect to stand up and admit Ellen White was a false prophet, admit 1844 was a terrible mistake, admit God never called them out of Protestant churches but their pioneers left under their own delusion, admit their unique teachings are tenuous at best, and commit to stop proselytizing other Christians and instead take the gospel of Jesus Christ (not their version of the 3 Angels' Messages) to a lost and dying world.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! ... They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them (Eze 13:3,6).

Citations

1. Charles Fitch, "Come Out of Her, My People": A Sermon (Rochester, N.Y.: J. V. Himes. 1843).

2. Miles Grant, The True Sabbath. Which Day Shall We Keep? An Explanation of Mrs. Ellen G. White’s Visions (Boston: Advent Christian Publication Society, 1874), 70.

3. Ellen White, Letter 18, 1850. See also, Ellen White the Blaspheming Prophetess.

4. Herbert E. Douglass, Messenger of the Lord (1998), 524. Arthur White, Ellen G. White: The Progressive Years: 1862-1876 (vol. 2) (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association: 1986), 395.

5. See Shut Door Chronology.

6. Ibid.

7. Review and Herald, May 26, 1853, 4. James admitted that the shut door of Luke 13:25 was yet future.

8. See Ellen White's Shut Door Statement.

9. Ellen White, Manuscript Releases, Vol. 17 (Silver Spring, MD: Ellen G. White Estate, 1990), 334 (statement written in 1885).

10. Ellen White, Manuscript Releases, Vol. 1 (Silver Spring, MD: Ellen G. White Estate, 1981), 302.

11. Ellen White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1911), 615-616.

12. James White, “The Testimony of Jesus,” Review and Herald, Dec. 18, 1855, 92-93; R. F Cottrell, “Spiritual Gifts,” Review and Herald, Feb. 25, 1858, 126.

13. Ellen White, Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4 (1884), 237.