tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13738853.post7706310770700208249..comments2022-10-23T08:50:54.845-04:00Comments on αpokalupto: Being WhiteDavid Hamstrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00918076742603923375noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13738853.post-92013576113466343372019-08-22T08:57:09.431-04:002019-08-22T08:57:09.431-04:00I have expanded the answer to the question above i...I have expanded the answer to the question above into an article: https://thecompassmagazine.com/blog/will-we-all-be-white-in-heaven-dissecting-a-strange-statement-from-ellen-whiteDavid Hamstrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00918076742603923375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13738853.post-21646721195860995282019-08-06T15:19:00.330-04:002019-08-06T15:19:00.330-04:00So to make that application explicit, I don't ...So to make that application explicit, I don't think she was saying that people of other races will be racially white in heaven, because she wasn't addressing racial identity. I don't think it's even likely that she was saying the we will all have bodies that resemble the white phenotype.<br /><br />I do think she was saying that we will all have Christ's 'white' character and all have white robes and shining faces in glory.<br /><br />So, basically, she and I are focusing on two different kinds of whiteness. I'm talking about worldly whiteness and what it means of us on earth that we will retain that and other racial identities in Heaven. She's talking about a Heavenly whiteness that will subsume all of our other identifies.David Hamstrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00918076742603923375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13738853.post-85391894120269049142019-08-02T20:17:32.113-04:002019-08-02T20:17:32.113-04:00I guess I was hoping you might discuss how that st...I guess I was hoping you might discuss how that statement relates to your article since it was the first thing that popped into my head when I started to read your post. Perhaps you think you have, and I just am not on the same track. But thank you for taking the time to respond. I really am struggling in my faith at the momentSeekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10074708378513686023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13738853.post-64522573548984318662019-07-31T12:43:58.678-04:002019-07-31T12:43:58.678-04:00We have other examples where God showed her an inc...We have other examples where God showed her an incomplete picture of things in order for her overall message to connect with people at the time (e.g. Joseph Bates and Jupiter's moons). And sometimes it's also the case that the way she explained what she saw leaves us with questions we want answered today but that weren't relevant back then. Whatever interpretive option is correct (there may be others I haven't considered), this is definitely a case of the later, if not the former. And therefore we shouldn't hypothesize about the glorified bodies, much less the racial identity, of the redeemed based on this isolated statement.David Hamstrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00918076742603923375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13738853.post-584364135818717472019-07-31T12:43:30.140-04:002019-07-31T12:43:30.140-04:00Seeker,
You are asking about one of those perplex...Seeker,<br /><br />You are asking about one of those perplexing one-offs in the Ellen White corpus that probably made sense at the time but for which we lack the context to arrive at a satisfying explanation of what she meant. You are not the only one who has wondered about this statement. I will offer a brief run-down of the interpretive options I have come up with, with the caveat that I am not an Ellen White expert.<br /><br />First, I think, given the overall point she was trying to make about unity in Christ across the races, that Ellen White was not saying that we will all be racially white in Heaven. That would have militated against her overall message. She was trying to say that the saved are going to share a state of whiteness with Christ that obviates racial whiteness. So what that be?<br /><br />(1) Ellen White, drawing of the symbolism of Revelation, also talked about the saints in glory as having been made metaphorically white in reference to their character reflecting the perfect, spotless character of Christ. So she have been trying to say that while some think that it's racial whiteness that counts, what really matters in the end is developing a character that is symbolically white like Jesus's. And that's something that people of any race can do by God's grace.<br /><br />(2) Related to that symbolism in Revelation, she may have been understood as referring whiteness in terms the physical appearance of the saints whose white robes and halo of Edenic glory that she saw in her visions would be like the white garments and shining face of the ascended Christ. She could have meant that these white and shining physical manifestations of inner-character will the privilege of people of every race, not just white people.<br /><br />These interpretive options are not mutually exclusive and are supported by a subsequent statement she wrote two years later to what is now Oakwood University in which she expanded on the same themes:<br /><br />"I have a message to bear that our white teachers shall encourage the black students ... that it is not the color of the skin that will spoil their record [or] that the Lord will make a special heaven for the whites and another for the blacks. All will receive their reward according to their cleanness of heart.<br /><br />"If Christ makes the colored race clean and white in the blood of the Lamb, if He clothes them with the garments of His righteousness, they will be honored in the heavenly kingdom as verily as the white, and when the Lord Jesus’ face shall shine upon the righteous black they will shine forth in the very same complexion that Christ has." (Letter 304, 1903, paragraph 5)<br /><br />(3) Finally, she may have been talking about a phenotypical whiteness that people of all races will possess in their glorified bodies. Jesus took on our infirmities in a brown body, but his resurrected body was not like that one in many respects. He was not immediately recognizable to his friends. This is why I say I don't know what we will look like in the resurrection. It is possible, but I think on the biblical evidence not probable, that we will all look similar in Heaven in a way we do not now, but in a way that Ellen White viewed as phenotypically white.<br /><br />This last is the most troubling interpretive option to me. But I think it's a live option, not only because we don't know what we will look like in heaven, but because God meets people where they are. I know of a few people whom I believe to have seen Christ in vision. And the Jesus they see doesn't look the same. He often looks like they do. Ellen White may have been shown a phenotypically white Jesus because she most likely would have identified as a white person. And because her early ministry was primarily to white people, she may have been shown a vision of the saints they could identify with.David Hamstrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00918076742603923375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13738853.post-21079234371598426102019-07-28T16:27:16.694-04:002019-07-28T16:27:16.694-04:00". . . In heaven there will be no color line;...". . . In heaven there will be no color line; for all will be as white as Christ himself."<br />(EGW, The Gospel Herald, March 1, 1901, para. 20)<br /><br />Ignoring the obvious fact that Jesus would have been brown skinned, please discussSeekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10074708378513686023noreply@blogger.com